


Weedkiller

by Scribe34



Series: Conquer the Night [13]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions, Pocket Monsters: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon | Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Versions, Pokemon - Fandom
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archie's Field Of Fucks To Give Is Barren, Badass Guzma, Beam Me Up Soffy, Bittersweet Ending, Chaotic Bisexual Molayne, Colress Machine #1897213983218: Invisibility Button, Cyrus Is Dead Inside, Ghetsis Is Possibly Even Less Sane Than Lusamine, Giovanni's Hubris, Hacker!Sophocles, Literal Deus ex Machina, Lysandre Is Completely Sane And That's Worse, Maxie Is Scrupulously Politely Evil, Mewtwo Is A Sapient Weapon Of Mass Destruction, Moon And Co. Fight Smart Not Hard, Multi, Probably Gratuitous Violence, Saving The Day With Musical Theater, Stealth Operations, Symbolism Wank And "Chosen One" Bullshit, Who Is Van?, Yveltal Is Hecking Scary, for which I hope you will forgive me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribe34/pseuds/Scribe34
Summary: Question: How are five teenagers and a failed island challenger supposed to infiltrate and rescue an entire artificial island from a group of power-hungry terrorists?Answer: With musical theater—duh.
Relationships: Gladio | Gladion/Moon, Guzma/Plumeri | Plumeria (Pokemon), Hau/Lilie | Lillie (Pokemon)
Series: Conquer the Night [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1002138
Comments: 31
Kudos: 64





	Weedkiller

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Weedkiller! If this is the first time you've ever read part of the Conquer The Night series, I'd like to ask you to STOP and go back and read the whole thing. Obviously, I'm not your mother and I can't tell you what to do. But it will make your understanding of what's going on easier... SO much easier, trust me. CTN started out as an expansion of SuMo/USUM (specifically UM) but has since grown to something you could call “parallel canon” or “canon-adjacent.” The main events of canon are more or less the same, but they happen for different reasons, or there's a darker twist. There is also, as evidenced by the summary, a great deal of crack and/or nonsense. Just because I can. And there's original plot woven through everything as well. My point is, this will make zero goddamn sense without the rest of the series.
> 
> If you'd like to private message me about something, you can drop me an ask at jooniepertree.tumblr.com. (Fair warning; it's a BTS stan account because I LOVE THEM OKAY, STREAM DYNAMITE THANK YOU but I try to contain my love to the before notes. Unless I reference something within the fic itself. Or unless I want to promote something.)
> 
> If you read this and/or everything else and enjoyed it, and you'd like to chat and hang out with like-minded folks and very occasionally me as well, you can join the Conquer The Night Discord Server! It's totally free and we are awesome. You can be updated when I post something with a direct link to the newest chapter of whatever part of the series I'm working on; you can occasionally experience things like diagrams or (on one occasion) music that I've made for the series that I don't put here on AO3 because this site hates embedding things. There's also fanart made by readers, a shitposting channel, a place to share Switch codes for SwSh... the list goes on. It's a fun place, come hang out! We'd love to have you. Copypasta this link into your browser to join: https://discord.gg/BXNrwKM
> 
> I hope you enjoy Weedkiller!
> 
> Content Warning: guns, mildly transphobic characters, characters experiencing major anxiety, brief description of medical abuse, graphic description of violence, brief depiction of torture, character deaths (not major), graphic depictions of death, body horror

To: soph_parker@pmail.co.alo

From: aewicke@aether.org

Re:

Attached Files: [afpchelp.mov]

**Aether Foundation Press Conference, March 3, 9:00 (Alolan Central Time)**

_A group of armed and uniformed Aether Foundation employees stand at attention on both sides of a wooden platform, painted white. On the platform are three chairs, all occupied: the leftmost by a thin, short man with greenish-blond hair and green-tinted glasses; the rightmost by a tall, buxom woman with dark hair and a pink sweater; and the central chair by a slender woman with white-blonde hair and green eyes._

_They are, of course, the presiding authorities of the Aether Foundation: Dr. Marcus Faba, Director of Research and Development and Medical; Ms. Amelia Wicke, Director of Conservation, Public Relations, and Media Coordination; and President Lusamine Mohn, Chairman of the Aether Foundation Board and CEO of the Aether Foundation itself._

_(As a matter of public interest: Dr. Faba owns 0.05% of Aether Foundation shares; Ms. Wicke owns 2% of Aether Foundation shares; and President Mohn owns 10% of Aether Foundation shares. All three are therefore on the Aether Foundation Board, and are members of the Aether Foundation Shareholders Association. President Mohn owns the largest share of the Aether Foundation, and as such can be said to be the “owner” of the institution.)_

_President Mohn stands and walks to the podium. Her expression is tranquil, though her eyes glitter with something set and jaded. She is silent for a few moments, until Ms. Wicke audibly shifts behind her, manicured nails tapping on the edges of her tablet. President Mohn clears her throat._

_“Citizens of Alola, it is a thrilling time. Only a few days on the heels of the newly-proclaimed Champion of the Alola League, Moon Hawkins, we as an organization have several exciting announcements to make. Over the last few months, the Aether Foundation Board has held several meetings to vote on and determine in what direction our interests, and therefore our progress, ought to lie.”_

_President Mohn's voice is pleasant; but the hardness in her eyes says that pleasantries are a mere facade. This woman is not happy._

_“After many iterations of various proposals and suggestions by members of the board, shareholders, and... independent parties...” Her mouth tightens as she forces those two words out. “... the Aether Foundation Board has arrived at the conclusion that the budget must be reorganized. Previously, the budget for Research and Development accounted for approximately sixty-two percent of all Aether Foundation funds, in both generated revenue and governmental grants. Conservation accounted for approximately twenty-one percent of Aether Foundation funds, and Medical accounted for approximately fifteen percent of the same. The remaining two percent went towards internal departments, such as Public Relations, Hospitality, Security, and IT.”_

_President Mohn reads the numbers from what is probably a tablet display on the podium, glancing down briefly to do so before looking back up at the audience— various media organizations, government officials, and the aforementioned Aether Foundation Board members and representatives of the Shareholder's Association._

_“The Aether Foundation is delighted to announce an official reorganization of the budget, as well as a new department which will connect all three main departments of the Aether Foundation: the department of Philanthropy. I will now turn the time over to Amelia Wicke, our new director of the department of Philanthropy.”_

_President Mohn sits down, and Ms. Wicke rises. Her expression is noticeably happier than President Mohn's, and she offers the audience a sincere smile before speaking._

_“Good morning, and welcome to the Aether Foundation. We are delighted to have you here, and I am honored to be able to address the restructuring of the budget.” She clears her throat. “Sixteen percent of Foundation funds will be allocated to the department of Research and Development. Thirty-two percent of Foundation funds will be allocated to the Medical department. Twenty-five percent of Foundation funds will be allocated to the Conservation department. Twenty percent of Foundation funds will be allocated to the Philanthropy department. And the remaining seven percent of Foundation funds will be allocated to internal departments.”_

_Murmuring rises around the assembled guests; eyebrows raise and mouths frown. Ms. Wicke smiles, a little less sincerely, before continuing._

_“The Aether Foundation's previous focus on Research and Development, specifically our ventures into experimental quantum physics and aerospace travel, have resulted in a failure of the company to address the concerns upon which the Foundation was originally founded. The Aether Foundation is primarily a medical institution, and secondarily a rehabilitation centre for endangered Pokémon and floral species of Alola. Though research into faster-than-light travel is exciting and marks great progress in the technological growth of the human race, there are many organizations who are at this time studying the same things. The Mossdeep Space Center of Hoenn is one such organization; and the International Police have also expressed interest in such studies. As both of these organizations are far better prepared to research these things than the Aether Foundation, we have decided as a Board that it will be a better and more humane use of our funds, time, and resources to focus on our original concerns._

_“The new department of Philanthropy, of which I am honored to be named director, has absorbed a portion of the budget previously allocated to Research and Development. The department of Philanthropy will focus on charities, scholarships, and research into basic human and Pokémon providence. This includes things such as farming and efficient food growth, with some experiments on safe GMOs; the engineering of safe, cheap, and practical architecture to create homes for those in need; creating labor and research jobs for those who seek employment; and making and receiving donations that go toward the other departments of the Foundation. Several college scholarships and island challenge or foreign Gym challenge sponsorships will be announced over the course of the spring, and interested parties may apply if they meet the requirements. Everyone deserves the opportunity to take a Pokémon journey, whether at home or abroad; and everyone deserves the opportunity to experience higher education. The Aether Foundation wishes to battle poverty and crime by helping citizens become healthy, safe, and educated. Statistics show that people who are cared for are better and more productive citizens, and we as an organization wish to help everyone reach those ideals._

_“I am pleased to announce the first initiative of the department of Philanthropy: Project PACTS. The acronym PACTS stands for Protection of Abused Children and Therapy Strategics. Donations can be made on the Project PACTS website, which you can find at 'aetherfoundation.org/philanthropy/pacts'. One hundred percent of donations made to Project PACTS will go towards building facilities similar to the Aether House on Ula'ula Island, which as you know serves as a boarding facility and foster home for children with special needs, either from disability or trauma. Project PACTS's first aim is to build, fund, and staff a children's shelter on each of the four islands of Alola. We have the cooperation of the island kahunas in this matter, and they are here today at our invitation.”_

_The camera pans around to the first row of the audience. Kahuna Hala Akiona, Kahuna Olivia Wala'e, Kahuna Ishmael Nanu, and Kahuna Hapu Kahonua are all seated. Kahunas Akiona, Wala'e, and Kahonua are all paying attention to Ms. Wicke; Kahuna Nanu appears to be asleep. A few other recognizable faces are present as well: Elite Four members Kahili, Molayne, and Acerola, and trial captains Ilima, Lana, Kiawe, Mallow, and Mina. Off to the side, Professor Maleko Kukui and Professor Elizabeth Burnet are holding hands._

_“Dr. Marcus Faba will now address the new focal points of the restructured department of Research and Development. Thank you for your time.”_

_Ms. Wicke is seated; Dr. Faba rises. His expression is slightly shifty, a little suspicious; he keeps looking down at his watch as though needing reassurance._

_“Good morning.” He pauses, looking at his watch again. “In the restructuring of the department of Research and Development, the board has chosen to focus more on materials, resources, and efficient production.” Another pause. “Our latest medical research includes a new lightweight fiber material, synthesized from a combination of Pokébeanstalks and Araquanid silk.” Yet another pause. “If successful, this material will be able to function as cost-efficient and environmentally friendly bandaging. The natural stickiness of the fiber precludes the need for an adhesive material, and the woven texture developed in alpha testing has indicated the possibility of waterproofing with only a single layer—”_

_BOOM._

_The camera vibrates rapidly before a violent, mint-green wave ripples out from a sudden, bright light behind the platform. After a few moments of vibration, the camera falls over entirely. There is shouting, running, screaming; several sharp reports indicate that someone has fired a gun. People in grey uniforms are appearing everywhere, grabbing the fleeing crowd and securing them with ropes or handcuffs. A crackle of electricity indicates the presence of a taser; someone falls near the camera with a thud. A purple bonnet flutters to the ground in front of the camera._

_“You'll never take me alive, motherfu— ck-ck-ck—”_

_A figure vaguely recognizable as Kahuna Nanu is dragged away, limbs shaking and vibrating. The bonnet partially obscures the camera. A figure in a pink sweater creeps slowly toward the camera, kneeling in front of it._

_“Send recording,” she whispers frantically. “Send recording, send recording— fucking send recording—”_

_Her face falls slack and she begins to shake. The last thing visible before the camera shuts out is a man in a white coat and green glasses, smiling vindictively with a taser in his hands._

* * * * *

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Moon blinked heavily before sitting up, rubbing her eyes. “Wha—?”

“You're receiving a call from Sophocles Parker, bzzt,” Rotom informed her.

“Tou ca?” wondered Ariel.

“Wha—? Um, just a sec.” Moon noted the time— 9:23 in the morning, which was late for her, but she didn't have to work today so she'd slept in— and climbed out of bed. She grabbed the hoodie she had been used to sleeping in on Mount Lanakila and which she no longer needed, not here in her warm house on Melemele Island. She pulled it on over the tank top she slept in and tapped on Rotom's screen to accept the call.

“MOON!” It wasn't a video call, just audio. Moon winced as the feedback crackled through Rotom's speakers; Sophocles had not so much shouted as _screeched_. Puck leaped to his feet, thrashing away from Moon's blankets; Ariel let out a surprised squawk and shuffled on her perch; and Ben yowled angrily until she flapped a hand at Macbeth and the Golisopod placed a gentle paw over his mouth. Hero and Kate were both in their balls but they vibrated, suddenly awake. “MOON YOU HAVE TO COME QUICK, IT'S AN EMERGENCY AND I CAN'T GET THROUGH TO ANYBODY!”

“Whoa, dude, hang on. What's wrong?”

“Th-th-th-the p-p-press conference, it went wrong and something happened, I don't know what it was because the recording got funky and then stopped and there were grey people with tasers and I think maybe guns. A-a-and I saw Hapu's bonnet on the ground, and somebody tased Kahuna Nanu, a-and I think also Ms. Wicke because she was the one who sent me the recording but it got cut off at the end—”

Moon knew what press conference Sophocles was talking about. She'd been formally invited, but Wicke had told her there wasn't really any need for her to attend and it would just piss Lusamine and Faba off more than they were already pissed off.

(“Not that,” she had added, a smirk on her face at the other end of the video call, “they can _do_ anything about being annoyed. I just prefer to be a gracious hostess, where possible.”)

“Okay,” Moon said, walking over to where her hiking backpack sat on the floor of her room. Ben leaped out of Macbeth's arms and followed; Rotom floated with her. “Let me just put some stuff together. Where should I meet you?”

“I-I checked the Ride Pager to see if we could maybe fly to Aether Paradise,” said Sophocles. His breathing was harsh. “But the services are down. I'm not sure what's wrong yet.”

“Okay. Where are you?”

“I'm at home,” he said forlornly. “At— at Mount Hokulani.”

Moon considered her options. “Okay,” she said gently. “Can you check on the Ride Pager website? See if they mentioned a server crash, or some kind of defect.”

“Um— okay.” She heard him typing over the phone; that meant he was using a manual keyboard, which meant a computer. _Bingo_. “I— oh. The website's down. Generic error page.”

He sounded a little less frantic.

“Okay, so probably that has something to do with it.” Moon hesitated. “Um, what do you know about the Rotom-Dex?”

“You have one, right?”

“Yeah. Do you have a Pokémon Center PC in the observatory? Or can you go to the Pokémon Center?”

“I'd— I'd have to go over. I'm not supposed to use the observatory PC for anything unrelated to work unless it's an emergency.”

“Sophocles, I think this constitutes an emergency. You can use the observatory PC.”

“Right, okay. What do you need?”

“Does the observatory PC have the ability to reconstitute items? Like you can put one item in a PC on Melemele, and you can take it out on Ula'ula?”

“Um— yes?”

“Hypothetically, would that work for human beings?”

“ _What_?”

“Think of it like, um— oh, what's that TV show. _Jirachi Trek_. You know, beam me up Scotty?”

“Oh my god,” whispered Sophocles. “I mean— if Pokémon can go through without getting hurt— but they're in Pokéballs— um. Oh, _god_. Maybe?”

“Can you make it safe for me to go through? If the Ride Pager is down, it's gonna take me most of the day to get to either Ula'ula Island or Aether Paradise. If there's people with guns, we want to be there as quick as possible.”

“Um, yeah...” He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Um, let me fiddle with some stuff. Can I call you back?”

“It doesn't have to be a super fancy or permanent solution,” Moon assured him. “Something we can just like, temporarily jerry-rig is fine. We're going to have to figure out how to get, um— probably four people to the Paradise?”

“Four?”

“Yeah. You, me, Hau, Lillie. I know neither of them are at the press conference. Lillie's in my guest room and Hau's house is just up the hill from mine. I'm going to wake Lillie up and we'll go up to Hau's. Hala has a PC in his house, so if we can get to you, we'll try from there.”

“Okay. I'll— I'll call you back.” Another deep breath. “Um, thanks, Moon.”

“You're welcome. Send me that recording, okay?”

“Yeah. Bye.”

The line went dead and Moon rushed over to her bedroom door, hurling it open.

Her mother and father were both awake, but the guest bedroom door was closed.

“Everything alright in there?” said Yoshiro, raising one eyebrow over his coffee. “Heard some yelling.”

“Um, there may be an actual emergency at the Aether Paradise,” said Moon. “Sophocles called me— said something about a video recording that Wicke sent him, which I should be getting any second now.”

“Just got it, bzzt,” said Rotom, with a decisive beep.

“Thanks. Um, depending on what we see I might need to head over there and straighten things out.”

“Why would you—” Kapua paused. “Right. You're the Champion.”

“Yeah,” said Moon, not quite able to stop herself from smiling at the thought. “Yeah, I am.”

She raised her hand and knocked on Lillie's door.

“Hmm?” said Lillie sleepily.

“Hey, there might be an emergency. Can you come out so I can explain?”

“Yes, just a moment.”

Lillie emerged from the guest bedroom in pajamas and an open bathrobe, sleepy-eyed and flushed. Moon beckoned her over to where everyone could see Rotom's screen and pressed play on the video file.

“Oh, god,” she said faintly, after a few moments. “That's— oh, god. Hapu, and Nanu, and Wicke— and so many other people.”

“That was Faba who tased Wicke,” said Lillie. All trace of fatigue had left her voice; it was tight and angry. “I'm going to _kill_ him. Excuse me while I get dressed.”

There wasn't really time for a shower. Moon put on extra deodorant and jammed her baseball cap over her greasy hair before piling Hyper Potions, Max Elixirs, and Revives into a smaller backpack. She buckled on her Trainer belt, recalling all of her teammates; Rotom was tucked into the pouch. The Aether Paradise was all white, but all of the gunmen— tasermen?— in the video had been outfitted in dark gray, so she picked leggings and a shirt in the same color. It might be possible to fool someone into mistaking her for one of the uniforms from a distance.

Lillie had had the same idea, though she was wearing lighter gray. She'd pulled all her hair back into one messy braid, shoving it through the back of another baseball cap that Moon lent her.

“Here,” said Yoshiro, holding out two sandwiches wrapped in paper towels. “Fried egg and bacon on toast. You'll need your strength.”

“Be safe,” added Kapua, her eyes worried. “I don't know if there's going to be anyone to rescue you if you get in trouble; nearly everyone was at that press conference.”

“We'll be careful,” promised Moon. She and Lillie took their sandwiches and booked it outside and uphill to Iki Town.

Hau was still in his pajamas and eating cereal, but after watching the video he got up and ran to get dressed. Kai and Leilani had watched in silence; Kai appeared to be trying not to cry. Moon didn't blame him. His father was there.

“We're going to find them. It's going to be fine, Uncle Kai.”

He blinked a few times. “Yeah,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “It's going to be fine.”

Leilani mouthed _thank you_ at her; Moon nodded in response.

When Hau was ready they crammed themselves into Hala's office and Moon called Sophocles back.

“Hi. Can you do it?”

“Yep,” said Sophocles. He sounded relieved. “I tested it with a Grubbin first and it went fine. Charjabug and Vikavolt were fine, too.”

“Did you try a non-Bug type?”

“Yeah— hang on, let me see if there's any Clefairy hanging around outside. I, um— they're all wild. I bribed them with beans.”

“Good.”

There was a pause. “Yeah, it worked.”

“Great. We're at Hala's PC. There's three of us and our teammates. What should we do?”

“Pick someone who's going first and send your team and belongings through. It's less complicated that way.”

Moon made to take off her backpack, but Hau was already pulling off his. “If it works for me, it will work for all of you,” he said firmly. “I'm bigger, so it's probably more difficult, right?”

“Right,” said Sophocles, almost absently. “There should be an item scanner hanging on the side of the PC.”

“Right, yeah.” Hau was already depositing his backpack and teammates. “Hokulani Observatory, right?”

“Right. Um— orange backpack, Primarina, Alo-Raichu...”

“Yeah, those are mine.”

“Okay. I'm withdrawing them.” There was a pause. “Okay, all your stuff is here. You need to take the item scanner and scan your Z-Ring, while it's still on you. Then drop the scanner really fast.”

“Lillie doesn't have a Z-Ring.”

“She won't be able to come without one.”

“I'll see if we can borrow my dad's,” said Hau, already running out of the room.

Lillie let out a quiet sigh of relief. “I thought you would tell me I had to stay behind.”

“I am not going to be the person to tell you to stay behind when Wicke's in danger.”

“And my mother.”

“And your mother, yeah.” Moon glanced at her, but didn't voice the thought out loud— didn't have to, because Lillie spoke first.

“Do you think she's on their side?” she said softly. “Faba is. Why not her?”

“I don't know,” admitted Moon. “We'll just have to see.”

“I suppose so.”

Hau raced back in with Kai's Z-Ring, and Lillie put it on. Moon held up the scanner and scanned Hau's Z-Ring.

He vanished with a pop.

There was a silence, and then a crashing noise.

“Ow!” yelled Sophocles. “You should have warned me you were coming through.”

“Sorry,” said Hau hastily.

“You made it through okay?” called Moon

“Yeah. It felt kind of weird.”

“Coming through,” said Lillie, already scanning in her bag.

“I was gonna go.”

“Whoops.” She didn't sound that sorry. Moon sighed and took the scanner to send Lillie through.

Another silence; then Sophocles said, “Lillie's through. You're last, Moon.”

She scanned in her backpack and teammates, waiting until everything had gone through; then she scanned her Z-Ring and quickly dropped the scanner.

Her entire body tingled, hard; lights flashed into lines and she was hurtling downward— hotter and more organized than Ultra Space, but at the same time similar.

* * * * *

She blinked and found that she was not, in fact, at the Hokulani Observatory.

“What the fuck,” she said out loud.

“Error,” said Rotom.

“What?”

“Error.”

She stood on what appeared to be a circular pathway; it stretched around a tall black-and-red building that resembled a castle.

“Hello?” she called.

The air flickered before her; Sophocles' head, floating without attachment to anything around them, materialized in blue-scale. “Moon? Hello, Moon?”

“Sophocles! Can you hear me?”

“Moon! Oh, good, I found her!”

“I'm not at the observatory.”

“Error,” repeated Rotom.

“I noticed.” His voice was dry; it was the first time she'd ever heard him sound like Molayne, even though they were cousins. “Um, you seem to have ended up on the Festival Plaza server.”

“The whatnow?”

“So, the Alolan PC system runs on multiple servers,” he explained. “Long story short, the Festival Plaza server is the one that runs international Pokémon trades. I don't know what you're seeing, but it looks like a lot of code to me. I can hear your voice, but I'm just watching numbers on a screen.”

“I'm in a _computer_?”

“Yep.”

She had to ignore the urge to ask questions. “It looks like an actual plaza. Except there's a castle, and it's black and red.”

There was a pause. “Does it look like it's _supposed_ to be black and red?”

“No,” confirmed Moon. “That's why I mentioned it.”

“I am seeing a code bug popping up every now and then, but I'm having some difficulty isolating it.” There was a pause. “Yes, she's fine. Or she hasn't told me, if she isn't.”

“I'm fine,” said Moon quickly.

“Error,” murmured Rotom.

“She's fine,” repeated Sophocles. “Please don't interrupt me, we'll be able to get her out faster.”

He kept typing.

“What should I do?” said Moon, after a few moments.

“Um, you can look around. I wouldn't touch anything, but looking should be fine.”

Moon walked toward the castle, looking up at it. There was a sign above the entryway that read “Festival Plaza” in ornate golden letters; but suddenly a light shone over the sign and projected something else in its stead.

Her entire insides went cold.

“S-Sophocles.”

“Yes?”

“Check the code for something related to Team Rocket.”

“ _What_?”

“Team Rocket,” repeated Moon. Bile rose with fear in her throat; she swallowed it down. “There's two big letter Rs shining right on the sign that says Festival Plaza. It's not just any old R. I know that design.”

All the grim stories that Red had told, on nights he'd had one too many glasses of wine; the times Moon had pretended to fall asleep before Red or Blue, just so she could listen to them reminisce without her getting in the way. Team Rocket was bad news. They were criminals, remorseless and ruthless. If they saw an eighteen-year-old girl they would gun her down without hesitation.

“Two letter Rs, you said?” Sophocles' voice was hesitant.

“Error,” said Rotom.

“Yeah.” Moon crept off the main pathway, crouching behind a bush as she peered toward the castle entrance.

“I keep seeing two Rs in the buggy code, but the word that's popping up most often is prismjet.”

“Prismjet?”

“Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to quarantine it— it's really slippery.” He paused. “You might be able to help, actually.”

“How?”

“Go inside the castle and see if you can find a terminal.”

“What's a terminal?”

A short pause. “Like a computer, I guess.”

“A computer inside a computer. Sure.” Moon took a deep breath, trying to quell the instinctual fear that had risen when she saw the double R logo, and quietly tiptoed into the castle. Sophocles' face followed her, floating along in bluescale.

It wasn't a very large castle to begin with— perhaps the size of a large house— but she was still surprised to find that the interior was only one room. There were several desks, with what looked like computers; several mannequins sat perfectly upright in the chairs.

“I'm inside. There's computers, and also some creepy-looking dolls.”

“Error.” Rotom's voice was oddly emotionless.

“Those are the user interfaces. Search engine and tag index at least... how many dolls?”

“Four.”

“One's going to be the international trade faciliation, and the last is probably the help menu. Um— let's check the help menu computer first.”

“Which one?”

“I'll flag it.”

A small yellow light appeared over one of the computers. Moon assumed that was the flag and took three steps toward it.

“Hey, you can't be in here!”

Terror filled her heart and she whirled around; two bluescale, holographic figures were walking towards her. They carried guns and wore uniforms— the uniforms that, on closer inspection, were quite familiar.

They were also not looking at her, but at Sophocles's head.

“I've got admin rights,” said Sophocles sternly. “You're the RR codebug, aren't you?”

“No!” snapped one of the figures. “We're code security. You shouldn't be in here. You're not tagged with admin rights.”

There was a pause, and Moon heard Sophocles typing. Then his floating head turned gold, with a label over it that read _ADMIN_ in capital letters.

“I am now.”

“Well— you're still not supposed to be in here!” blustered one of the grunts, raising his gun.

They still hadn't noticed Moon, even though she was standing in full view, right next to Sophocles' head. “I don't know if they can see me,” she said out loud.

The grunts ignored her.

“Hmm,” said Sophocles. “Do you have Rotom with you?”

“Yes? He keeps saying 'error.'”

“Who are you talking to?” One of the holographic guards raised his gun and fired a holographic bullet at Sophocles.

“Ow! Fucking— _malware_ ,” hissed Sophocles. It was the first time she'd ever heard him swear. “If they can't see you, you can probably help me debug the code without them noticing. But you should turn Rotom off, just in case they can sense it.”

Moon pulled Rotom out of her belt. The guards paused, glancing around; but she pressed the power button and Rotom's screen went dark.

“Must have been a code fragment,” said one of them. “Get out, admin. You're not supposed to be here.”

“You're a fucking bug, _you're_ the one who shouldn't be here,” snapped Sophocles. “Moon, find the terminal and look for the debug program.”

Moon went, but so did one of the guards, staring suspiciously at the terminal in question.

“Oh, for fuck's sake.” Sophocles seemed to be forgetting his shyness in his anger. “Take this, you sons of bitches! Fragment source code: _prismjet_!”

Both of the holograph guards turned bright orange, shrieking in pain.

“Oh my god, this is why Molayne always tells me not to swear,” remarked Moon, carefully pushing the chair with the mannequin out of the way and bending down over the keyboard. “You've got a mouth on you, kid.”

“Mo,” said Sophocles tightly, “swears _far_ fucking more than I do. He's fucking with you. He loves fucking with people.”

There was half a sob in his voice, and Moon remembered that Molayne was one of the captured press conference guests. “We'll get to him,” she promised Sophocles. “I swear on my life, Sophocles. We will find him, and we will rescue him and everybody else.”

He sniffled. “Okay.”

“Query source code: Moon?” said one of the guards, suddenly turning blue again.

“Shit,” mumbled Sophocles. “Moon, hurry up.”

“I don't know what I'm looking for.” She was looking through labeled menus, glancing at her options; nothing that said debug had come up on it yet.

“Query source code: Moon. Searching,” said the other guard, also turning blue.

“I think the fuck _not_ , you trick-ass bitch! Source code sanitize: _prismjet_!” shouted Sophocles, and his time both guards turned green, shrieking again.

In the very bottom of the help terminal Moon found something that read DEBUG and tried to click on it, but to no avail. “How do I make it do the thing?” she asked Sophocles, jabbing at the mouse.

“Use your Z-Ring. I'll try and distract them but it's probably going to alert the bugs to where you are, so once you press it you have to run.”

Moon nodded and held her wrist up to the screen. The moment the Z-Ring touched it, the whole world went blue.

“There!”

The guards suddenly appeared solid, raising weapons and aiming; Moon dove behind the terminal. The glass screen shattered with the impact of the bullets and a golden mist rose from the broken terminal, spreading over the room.

“Moon, get out of the goddamn castle!”

Sophocles' head was no longer visible, but a yellow dot was pulsing on the lined wall behind her; the label ADMIN was still hovering nearby.

She tried to get up, but her feet didn't move— they were attached to lines on the ground. Also— and this wasn't terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but it was rather hard to ignore— she was now purple. “I can't move?”

“Um— oh god, shit, you've turned into a code bug. You have to get out before I quarantine the castle.”

“I can't move though!”

The yellow ADMIN blip slid along the lines of the wall and down to the floor, pulsing around her feet. “Um, you can move as long as your feet stay on the lines.”

“I can't go very fast if they're both on the same line—”

“Come out, intruder!” shouted one of the guards. She could hear their footsteps, stalking toward her.

“I'm putting one of your feet on another channel, just a second.”

“I don't _have_ a fucking second!”

“Source code query: Moon!” yelled the other guard.

Her arm jerked; it was her left arm, with the Z-Ring on it. A purple beam shot up to the ceiling.

“Found you, bitch!”

“I'll hold them off,” said Sophocles hastily, and the yellow ADMIN blip shot past her, suddenly turning orange and multiplying, running down different channels and rising up in beams to form pulsing walls of light. The guards yelled in muffled frustration.

But Moon's feet were on separate lines now, and she managed to stand up. The golden mist was creeping over the ceiling, and she had the feeling that she needed to avoid it.

Her suspicion was confirmed when one of the guards burst through Sophocles' orange wall, shouting triumphantly and raising his weapon to fire at her. Moon crouched, trying to make herself into a little ball; but one of Sophocle's orange beams reached back, snapping away from the ceiling to wrap around the guard's waist. It yanked him off the floor— he and the other guard also seemed to be bound by the lines— and slammed him straight up into the mist.

He disintegrated at once into a series of blue and red blips; the red ones pulsed nastily and slid along the ceiling, underneath the mist.

“Moon, are you out?”

“It's kind of slow going, since I can't lift my feet.”

Sophocles sighed. “How are you at ice skating?”

“Not that great.”

“Skateboarding?”

“Never tried it.”

He paused, silent. “I can't think of a metaphor that's going to make a whole lot of sense to you. Um— what about a hoverboard?”

“I tried one once,” admitted Moon. “My friend Molly from Team Skull has one.” That had been a while ago, hanging out with Molly and Rogelio in Malie City while filming a vlog for Red and Blue. She hadn't filmed herself on the hoverboard, because she wasn't very good at it and she didn't need to send them footage of her crashing into walls and falling over. Even if it would have been hilarious.

“Okay. I'm sending you a totally frivolous bit of code but if you've ridden a hoverboard it should help.”

Two dots of yellow light darted out from the orange walls that were technically Sophocles, rushing toward her feet. Moon watched, surprised, as a blur of yellow-and-purple light swirled together; suddenly, she stood on a yellow and purple hoverboard.

“You know how to make it go, right?”

“Yeah.”

She leaned forward, and was surprised at the speed with which the hoverboard took her... directly into one of the terminals.

“Ow.”

“You still have to steer.”

“Yeah, I got that, thanks.”

The yellow mist fully covered the ceiling now, and was beginning to drift downward, creeping on the walls. The orange dots and beams that represented Sophocles were retreating toward Moon, gliding back in the direction of the door.

“You get out before I do and I'll quarantine the castle,” promised Sophocles.

Moon straightened herself up, attempting to aim the hoverboard at the castle door. It was difficult, since the wheels were still placed on the lines and couldn't deviate; but a lot of the lines seemed to lead to the door anyway.

“There's some mist coming down over the doorway. I don't want to touch that, right?”

“Correct. That's the debug program and you are technically a bug.”

Two golden blips rushed out past Moon, traveling on lines up the wall on either side of the door; a net blocked the mist from spreading over the door.

“Are _you_ a bug?”

“I am not a bug,” said Sophocles. He sounded a little too patient. “I'm using some programming tricks I know to get rid of the malicious bugs in the server code. I isolated one of them into the debug program, but I'm trying to keep the other from getting through to you so if you could maybe not ask me any non-essential questions until you get out of the castle, that would be _really_ fucking great. Thank you in advance.”

It was a not at all subtle hint. Moon wondered how she'd ever thought Sophocles was all softness and sweetness. Perhaps his friendship with his cousin Molayne ought to have clued her in; she wasn't sure if Molayne was capable of being anything _but_ sarcastic.

She managed to wheel herself out through the entrance; the plaza outside was still covered in lines but all of the channels converged into one line. “I'm out, how do I get off the hoverboard?”

“Don't worry about it.”

Yellow and orange dots whizzed past her; blurring to form a tall, muscular man; he held what appeared to be a gun of his own, raising it to aim at the doorway behind them. Two golden blips fired from the gun, and the doors of the castle slammed down.

The red and black castle turned gold. The hoverboard vanished, and so did all of the lines and channels; Moon fell over at the change, suddenly herself once more.

“All right,” said the tall, muscular man in Sophocles' voice. Moon blinked at the image and was slightly disturbed to see that it had Sophocles face.

“Did you know you kind of look like a superhero right now?”

“I have no idea what I look like to you,” said Sophocles, though his tone was suspiciously innocent. “I can't see you.”

“Hmm,” said Moon, adopting the same suspicious innocence into her own tone.

“Ugh, fine, clearly you've spent too much time with Mo. Yes, I programmed my code avatar to look like the Rock.”

“But with your own face.”

“Can't really change that,” said Sophocles moodily. “Tell your cousin to stop laughing.”

“Can he hear me?”

“No, I have headphones on.”

“Then why would I tell him—”

* * * * *

Her whole body tingled hard, and suddenly she was in the observatory on Mount Hokulani. Hau, in the background, was still laughing.

“Oh my fucking god, _warn_ a girl next time!”

“Sorry,” said Sophocles, turning around from the swivel chair he'd been sitting in and pulling off a headset. His hair was an uncombed riot of curls, and he was still wearing pajamas.

“Are you okay?” said Lillie, rushing toward her.

“Yeah, I'm— fine. I have no idea what the hell just happened, but I'm fine.”

“You snagged a corner of your materialization code on the Festival Plaza server,” said Sophocles absently. “Are your shoes tied?”

Moon glanced down at her feet. One of her shoes was, in fact, untied. “Oh.”

“Yeah, that would do it.”

“Are we going to the Paradise now?” asked Hau.

“Yes.” Sophocles glanced down at his clothes, turning pink. “Um, one moment, please. I should put on something that isn't, um, my PJs.”

Moon mentally _awwww_ 'ed at the mumbled end of the sentence and the fact that Sophocles still called them _PJs_ , but she didn't want to embarrass him by saying it was cute out loud. Instead she bent down and tied her shoelaces, tucking the ends inside her hiking boots. Lillie and Hau did the same as Sophocles ducked out of the room.

“What was it like inside a computer?” Hau inquired.

“Very colorful and oddly warm. It was a lot like Ultra Space, actually.”

“Ultra Space was cold,” murmured Lillie.

“Yeah, that's why I was surprised it was warm. And Ultra Space was kind of swirly, but the computer was organized.”

“What was that you were saying about Team Rocket?”

“I think the virus is maybe related to it. Like whoever wrote the virus might be a creepy fan, or something.”

Sophocles returned; he was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans and appeared to have made no attempt to style his hair. “Okay, I think I'm ready.”

“Have you ever been to the Aether Paradise?” Moon asked him.

“Um, once? My class went on a field trip when I was in fifth grade.” He flushed. “I was like, seven. I don't remember much about it.”

“You should bring a jacket,” said Lillie gently. “It gets cold.”

Sophocles flushed. “O-okay.”

He came back with an ugly sweater, which was just about the right size. Moon recognized it as one of Molayne's and again said nothing.

“Have you all got everything you need?” he asked, looking at them. “Are your Pokémon all okay? Um, we have potions and stuff if you need them.”

“We came prepared,” Hau assured him. “Are you ready, too?”

“Um— I don't think I'm a very strong Trainer. Not in comparison to you, anyway. So, I don't, um— I don't know if I should bring my Pokémon?”

“Will you feel better if you have them with you?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Then you should bring them.”

“Um, okay. Let's go then.”

It was such a contrast, the shy and anxious real Sophocles and the angry, snarling hacker who had helped her in the surreal electronic plane. Moon studied him for a few moments as he fiddled with the computer, but then he straightened and turned to look at them, brown eyes red-rimmed but steady. “Who's first?”

“Me,” said Moon firmly. She turned Rotom back on. “Where are you sending me?”

“Um, I thought the main PC kiosk in the lobby of the dock level?”

“Is there anywhere more private?”

He shook his head. “That's the only public PC on the Paradise. All the others are on various private networks. I can access them when we get there, but not before. Sorry.”

“Nah, it's okay. Just wondering.”

She sent her belongings into the PC again, then held out her wrist for Sophocles to scan her in.

This time, she simply appeared on the other end, with no unexpected pit stops at hacked servers. She got out of the way of the materialization scanner and removed her Pokémon and belongings, buckling her Trainer belt on and putting on her backpack.

Hau came through second; then Lillie, and finally Sophocles. He had found a beanie somewhere, jamming it on over his messy hair.

“It's way too quiet here,” said Moon, once they were all situated. “Aether's usually jam-packed with people, especially on early weekends. It's a Saturday morning, there should be more people here.”

“Well, the first visitors of the day aren't scheduled to arrive until ten in the morning,” pointed out Sophocles, pointing at an electronic bulletin-board that displayed scheduled ferry arrivals and departures. “It's only nine forty-five.”

“We don't _want_ people to get here,” realized Moon. “First of all, there's nobody running anything— no employees.” She indicated the docks. “The passengers aren't going to have any idea what to do. How do we close off the docks?”

“I can probably figure it out from over there,” said Sophocles, pointing to a glass-windowed office.

They tried to open the office with Lillie's key card, and then Moon's and Hau's; but it didn't work. Moon sighed after a few moments, then took Ariel out.

“Stand back, guys.”

“Aw, come on, don't break the—”

“Ariel, use Brick Break.”

The window shattered.

“—window,” finished Hau, resigned. “That probably cost more than my life is worth.”

“Amelia isn't going to care,” said Lillie softly.

Moon glanced at her— she knew from experience that she was hearing the tone of someone who was really, horribly Not Okay— but as she looked at her friend she saw Lillie take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, then exhale, letting her shoulders slump into a more relaxed pose. She'd seen Gladion do something similar before, though that was before either of them had started therapy. Gladion had mentioned that they'd both learned breathing exercises from their therapists.

God, she missed Gladion. He'd only been gone for three days, and she missed him.

Hau had the longest arms, so he gingerly reached through the broken window and unlocked the door from the inside. Sophocles sat down at the computer, cracking his knuckles before beginning to type; several windows popped up with unintelligible scripts and numbers on them. Moon was curious, but she had the feeling that asking what exactly Sophocles was doing out of curiosity alone was going to get her sworn at so she didn't say anything.

“Anything useful in here?” wondered Hau, poking through the office.

“Look for key cards, especially if they're blank,” suggested Lillie. “We might be able to code them into door keys.”

“Can't key movement be tracked?” wondered Moon.

“Ordinarily, yes.” Lillie indicated Sophocles with one hand. “But I think we can assume nobody is working right now, and that includes the IT department. We should be able to hide our electronic signatures.”

“Much to their disadvantage,” murmured Sophocles, standing up. A whir of heavy mechanics sounded, and a pair of metal doors began sliding down over the entryway that led to the open ocean. “And the sightseers are safe. Hopefully nobody has an override code. Is there a secondary dock?”

“Yes, but it's only large enough for a speedboat.”

“Lusamine's?” said Moon knowingly.

Lillie nodded, her face tight.

“Should be secure, then.”

The key cards again did not work on the elevator; but Lillie pointed them over to a door off to the side of the docks with a fire alarm hanging over it. Sophocles simply took out his Togedemaru and had it short out the fire alarm; then Moon had Ariel break the window next to the door, so they could let themselves through. A slender staircase led upstairs.

“How come Gladion didn't take us through here when we were breaking in the first time to rescue you?” wondered Moon.

“Despite all appearances,” said Lillie, a note of dryness in her voice, “his first instinct is almost never destructive. Also, there are a _lot_ of stairs.”

It took, in fact, seven switchbacks to get up to the main level; the stairs were shallow but there were just a lot of them. Moon and Hau, having recently hiked up an entire mountain, were in fairly good shape; Lillie and Sophocles, less so for different reasons. Lillie simply wasn't used to this amount of stairs, and Sophocles, as he explained as they took a few moments to recover at the top of the stairs, was prone to making poor dietary choices.

“I was in better shape when I did my own island challenge. Lanakila was rough, but I kind of went with Mo. He would fly up to hike with me for a few hours every day, and he would spend the night sometimes too. I only went alone when he had challengers for his trial.”

“That was nice of him,” said Moon, offering Sophocles a smile. “Feeling all right?”

“Not particularly, but we don't really have any time to waste.”

“Fair point.”

They shorted out the fire alarm again, and Moon peeked through the window to check for anyone who shouldn't be there before having Ariel break the glass. She carefully reached through and opened the door.

The main lobby of the Paradise was quiet— similar to how it had been when they had come to rescue Lillie, several months ago now. It was an unpleasant, threatening kind of silence.

“Hang on,” murmured Sophocles, veering towards the lobby help-desk. “I want to see if I can figure out where everybody is. If I can tap into IT from here, we'll have an advantage.”

“I hope nobody's down in the labs,” said Lillie, frowning.

“ _Same_ ,” said Moon and Hau in unison.

“Once was enough for me, it's the second-creepiest place here,” added Hau.

“What was the most creepy place?” asked Sophocles, still tapping at the computer.

Moon and Hau both glanced at Lillie. She shrugged, clearing her throat. “My mother is mentally disturbed and kept a collection of cryogenically frozen Pokémon in the private family lab below her bedroom.”

Sophocles' face twisted in disgust. “ _Why_.”

“If I could explain her to you, I would be in therapy for entirely different reasons,” said Lillie, the ghost of a smile on her face. “It takes a sociopath to explain a sociopath, and sometimes not even then.”

“Therapy is good,” said Sophocles, a touch absently. “My best friend is in therapy.”

“Molayne?”

“N-no.” He went slightly pink. “Um, it's a different friend. You don't know him. Um, so it looks like there's a lot of people who are locked into small suites of rooms in these outbuildings? The ones on either side of the main complex.”

Lillie went around to peer at the screen. “Those are the Aether employees,” she said, nodding. “They usually live two to three to an apartment. They're all locked in.”

“And it also seems like there's a lot of people in the farthest outbuilding. I can't get anybody out— they've got something that overrides literally everything I try. I could maybe write a virus that can take it out, but that would probably take out all of Aether's electronic assets— like vital medical machines and refrigeration units, but also like, bank accounts. So I'd really rather not do that.”

“Let's avoid that,” agreed Moon. “Wicke would be mildly annoyed if she had to start the whole thing over from scratch. She could totally do it, but she would be annoyed.”

“She seems very nice,” said Sophocles meekly. “I was invited to the press conference, but I didn't want to go.” He blushed again. “I don't really like being on camera.”

“And we are really, _really_ glad that you didn't go,” said Moon, clapping him on the shoulder. “We would never have been able to get this far without your help.”

The blush went from pink to scarlet. “Thank you.”

“The farthest outbuilding is the mansion,” said Lillie. Her voice was grim. “Since they've locked everyone in here, all of the people in grey are probably over there. So we need to be really careful.”

“That's your home, right?” said Sophocles.

“I don't really consider it my home anymore, but it's where I was raised.”

“Right. Um, Molayne explained a little of that to me. A-and so did Gladion.” He looked up at Lillie. “My parents are really nice, and so are my aunt and uncle— Mo's parents. But I have a friend whose family was really mean to him. I'm, um... I'm sorry you were hurt.”

He was still blushing. Moon sort of wanted to coo and pinch his cheeks, and was briefly appalled at the “old-lady-ness” of the thought.

“Oh, it's better now, but thank you,” said Lillie, offering him a soft smile.

They moved carefully through the main facility, towards a large set of glass doors that showed the carefully landscaped gardens. Nobody's attention was drawn toward the gardens, however, because of what had happened to the mansion.

“That's,” began Hau, though words seemed to fail him.

The horrific, gut-wrenching fear in Moon's stomach rose once more. “Oh god,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away. “Oh god, no.”

She could tell it was largely illusion— there were some very spotlights in the gardens and hedges around the mansion, which she vaguely remembered Rogelio— or was it Gladion?— telling her were for projecting various colors and patterns of light onto the mansion, according to the holidays. There hadn't been anything on for New Years, but Molly had sent a picture of the outside of the mansion on Christmas Eve: the lights reflected on the white walls were a pinkish red and light green.

The light reflected now was burning, angry fire-red; and above the front doors, even from this distance, she could see two black Rs.

It _couldn't_ be.

A faint memory drifted back into her mind— one she had tried to forget. Kneeling on a rainy pavement, with a gun pressed to her head; a red-rimmed smile informing her that—

“ _—you see, we actually do know some... alumni, of Team Rocket._ _And your name was brought up as a person of interest to Satoshi Red and Gary Oak— or as you and the rest of the world know them, Red and Blue..._ ”

“Goddamn _fuck_!” she shouted, and Hau, Lillie, and Sophocles all jumped, startled. “Team fucking _Rocket_ , not letting well enough the fuck alone!”

“Are you sure?” said Hau, eyes wide.

“It's those Rs,” said Moon grimly. “So they're responsible for the server bugs, which are probably what has the Ride Pager website down— no better way to hold hostages than to prevent people from getting in or out of a place.” It was all coming together. “And they have all the kahunas, the Elite Four, and most of the trial captains hostage.”

“And Amelia.” Lillie's eyebrows knitted together. “How should we do this?”

Moon studied the gardens. A wide-open area, where the press conference had been, was trashed with broken chairs and a collapsed platform; thankfully she couldn't see any bodies but that, of course, did not mean there _weren't_ any. Her stomach rolled at the thought.

“We have to get inside the mansion,” she said slowly, staring at the two Rs. “If we can get in...”

Red had only talked about it once, but Blue had spoken about Silph Co. several times, so Moon knew more or less what had happened. It was a similar situation to the one they were in now, but they had some different resources. They didn't have a Psychic-type specialist with an overpowered Alakazam, but they did have a prodigal computer programmer.

“Lillie,” she said, turning to look at her friend. “Does the mansion run on the same IT network as the complex?”

Lillie shook her head. “They used to be, but Mother was paranoid and ordered a private network for the mansion.”

“Even Lusamine's lab?”

Lillie's face grew thoughtful. “It's possible she might have had a private connection with the lab where Nebby was kept. She didn't build the wormhole-opening machine in the complex, and the security would have annoyed her for personal projects. The bureaucracy was mostly to make everyone else suffer. Amelia used to complain about it.”

“I am, oddly enough, unsurprised,” said Moon dryly, drawing a rueful smile from Lillie. “So, potentially, if we could access Lusamine's basement server from the lab where they kept Nebby, would it be possible to get into the house by unlocking a door somewhere?”

“Yes,” said Sophocles immediately, though he colored up when they all turned to look at him. “If the basement has some way to control everything in the house, and if there is a remote access point in the lab you're talking about, I would be able to open a door or doors for you.” He frowned. “But someone would need to stay at the remote access point, to prevent sabotage. I would need constant access to a computer.”

“So we'd have to split up.” Hau shook his head. “I don't think we should do that. No offense to anyone here, but we're four teenagers about to face down a mansion full of murderous nutjobs. If they got one of us alone, that could be really bad.”

“Agreed. If we go down to the lab, Rotom might be able to get into whatever you're doing?” suggested Moon. “Then you could have it with you, and control what needs to be done on the go.”

“If there's a remote access point, you don't need to go anywhere, bzzt,” chirped Rotom from her belt. “I can check from here.”

“Even if it's secured?” said Sophocles doubtfully.

A mischievous grin lit up the blue screen. “Secured? I don't know her, bzzt.”

“You've been picking up speech patterns from Molly and Rogelio,” accused Moon, though she laughed along with the others. “Can you get in?” She opened the pouch where she kept Rotom and held it out to Sophocles.

“Let's try.” The younger boy took Rotom, holding his palm flat to support the Dex casing and tapping rapidly with the other hand, pulling up black screens that Moon didn't even know existed.

“I can float if you need two hands, bzzt.”

“Oh, right.” Sophocles let go of Rotom, and the tapping resumed at what seemed to Moon to be light-speed. “Let's see... how many coding languages are you familiar with?”

“I think the question you should be asking is how many coding languages am I _not_ familiar with, bzz.t.”

“How many are you not familiar with?”

“Zero.”

“Such a diva,” muttered Moon.

“Ghost-types generally have more mischievous personalities,” said Sophocles absently. “I'm not really surprised. I'm friends with Ace... oh, _here_ we go.”

“Did you find it?”

“I think so. Um, Lillie—what's the wi-fi password at the mansion?”

“The guest network doesn't have a password, but the private network's password is 'science,' with every second letter capitalized, and then an ampersand. No spaces.”

Moon hadn't known this— she and Rotom had only ever used the guest network, figuring they wouldn't need the private one. Rotom had informed her that he could definitely use the private network anyway, but Moon had decided they wouldn't risk invading anyone's privacy.

“So, this?” Sophocles turned Rotom's screen to show what he'd typed in: _sCiEnCe &_, which looked strange and slightly wrong to Moon's eyes.

“That's it.”

He nodded and pressed a button on the keyboard. Rotom paused for a moment.

“Nope,” it said ruefully. “I'm getting rejected, and I tried bypassing password code, too. They've got something in there to guard against me.”

“They might have noticed when I reclaimed the Festival Plaza server,” said Sophocles absently. “Moon and I weren't exactly taking steps to ensure our presence was a secret... and the server did ping her through here briefly on the way to Mount Hokulani.”

“Why?”

“I don't have the time or mental energy to explain that to you right now. You can ask me again when we're not saving everyone we know from imminent mortal peril.”

“Totally fair. But this means that Team Rocket has someone doing the IT stuff on their end.”

“Oh,” murmured Sophocles, his tone fake-gentle again. “You _think_?”

Moon elected to ignore the sarcasm. “We know that Team Rocket, historically, are awful, evil people who enjoy causing pain to people and Pokémon alike. However, with the expertise of a childhood friend, I also happen to have some additional information that could help us.”

“A childhood— oh, do you mean Blue?”

“I actually mean Red, in this case. I didn't know you knew that,” said Moon, surprised.

Sophocles shrugged. “I'm an admin for the chatrooms for the Alolan League livestream website. Blue came on and made it pretty clear who he was, so I made him an admin too.”

“Oh, god, you gave him power.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I regretted it it almost immediately. But what was your point?”

“According to Red, Team Rocket are idiots.”

“I mean, that codework in Festival Plaza wasn't an amateur hack job. They knew what they were doing.”

“But they were also looking for _me_ ,” said Moon pointedly. “Not you. You were just posing as the admin or whatever.”

“No, I actually gave myself admin powers.”

“Same difference. Did they recognize you as Sophocles, or did you just look like the Rock to them?”

“I probably looked like some kind of south Galarian clansman. You know, the ones that wear kilts.”

“Please put a kilt on your admin imagey thing. That would be _hilarious_.”

Sophocles sighed. “I think we're getting off track. They didn't recognize me, so what?”

“So they weren't setting a trap for you and they probably just thought you were running natural debug programs, or that you're some ordinary programmer on one of the islands. And in that case, they think they're dealing with my level of technological prowess, which is admittedly not high. I hired a teenager to manage all of my media stuff, I can't remember if I have a Ribomblr account, and Rotom does all the hard work for me.”

“And your point is?”

“If they think they're dealing with me levels of tech-savvy, they probably picked a pretty easy password because the grunts aren't going to remember it otherwise.”

Sophocles blinked at her several times, then looked down at Rotom and typed something into the keyboard.

“Oh, that was it, bzzt!”

Hau raised one eyebrow. “What was their password?”

“It was ' _password_ ,' ” said Sophocles, in the tone of someone who was saying _It was a pile of steaming shit_. “I didn't think they could be _that_ stupid.”

“Boy, do I have news for you.” Moon clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. “So, are we in?”

“Hang on.” Sophocles opened a few more windows, eyes scanning them quickly as he typed without looking at his hands. “Um... okay, yeah. I can open and close the front doors and the hatch for that speedboat that you mentioned. There's no service doors?”

Lillie shook her head. “No, everything goes through the front.”

“Well, the speedboat's not going to do us any good,” pointed out Hau. “Unless any of you feel like going swimming.”

Sophocles frowned. “I can only barely swim, and I'm not jumping off a fifty-foot drop into the water.”

“It seems quite risky to just walk in through the front door,” said Lillie doubtfully.

“It's the only option.”

None of them were going to argue on that point. Moon checked one more time, eyes scanning the seemingly deserted garden, to make sure there were no Team Rocket grunts waiting or patrolling outside.

Sophocles tapped Rotom's screen and the complex door opened; they crept outside, edging sideways along the wall and looking around.

* * * * *

The liberation of Silph Co. six years previously had been, Blue had said once, a massive clusterfuck. There were gunmen inside and outside the building, with a police perimeter set up to protect civilians. Moon remembered seeing the news, twelve years old and clutching her mother's hand tightly— _please not Dad, please not Dad_. It hadn't been just the two of them, either. Everyone in Kanto knew someone who worked at Silph Co. Those three days had been ugly, quiet, and terrifying.

And it had only been through a rather young Gym leader and two Trainers on their challenge who had managed to liberate the building. Red and Blue hadn't planned to help, but Sabrina had asked for their assistance. The three of them had hidden in an alleyway beyond the police perimeter, waiting quietly until a pair of grunts on patrol had walked past. Red had made scrabbling noises behind a dumpster, and Blue produced a fairly credible Eevee's cry; Eevee were rare enough that the grunts had gone to investigate and were promptly incapacitated by Sabrina's Alakazam.

(Red had admitted once, deep into his third glass of wine by this point and staring broodily at nothing, that still he didn't know whether or not Sabrina had killed them; and that he didn't want to know.)

Red and Blue had stripped the Rockets of their uniforms and put them on, keeping the caps low to disguise their faces; and then they had picked up the pistols and whips and made their way back to the Silph Co. building. Sabrina had followed invisibly— her Alakazam could do that, but only for one person. Once inside, they had discovered that the elevator was broken, and made for the stairs.

It would have been a successful stealth operation if it hadn't been for a particular pair of grunts, a young man and woman who were not that much older than Red and Blue themselves, who had a particular vendetta against Red in particular. They were after his Pikachu. It wasn't a terribly rare Pokémon, easily accessible in Viridian Forest; but they were petty enough to keep pestering Red.

(Red had rolled his eyes and mumbled something under his breath about “melodramatic, full-camp goons.” Blue had elbowed him, with a frown. “They turned out okay,” he explained to Moon. “Once everything was over, they agreed to testify in exchange for reduced sentences. They weren't really bad people; they were just... really, really dumb. They retired to Kalos after they did their time. James writes sometimes.”)

The grunts had recognized Red and called for backup. Red and Blue had promptly split up and run for it. Red had made it into a storeroom and closed himself inside of a supplies closet; Blue had found himself in a conference room with a dead end until he looked up and saw the ceiling vent. Sabrina, of course, had remained invisible.

It took some doing— Sabrina helped by passing along psychic communications— but they shed the uniforms and managed to make it up all twelve floors of the building, through a combination of air vents, service hallways, and in the end climbing up through the broken elevator shaft to the twelfth floor.

“Moon?”

She hadn't realized she'd stopped walking until Hau said her name, soft and kind.

“Sorry,” she said, a little stiffly. “Just— thinking about some things.”

“You can't afford to get distracted right now,” he said gently.

“I know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“It's— stupid, it's just that this reminds me of when Red and Blue liberated Silph Co. with Gym Leader Sabrina. My dad was in there.”

Lillie's eyes went round. “Oh my god, I never made that connection.”

“I remember that,” said Hau. “It made international news, not just Kantonian. I think my dad probably called Aunt Kap like, thirty times.”

“Yeah.” Her mom had been on the phone pretty often; Moon had listened to the conversations, curled miserably under her mother's arm and watching the twenty-four-hour news coverage with deadened eyes. “It was really shitty.”

“But you're using those memories to help now, aren't you?”

She studied Sophocles, surprised at his insight. “Yeah, I'm trying,” she said finally. “We don't have a Sabrina, but we do have a Sophocles. And in this case, I think that's way better.”

Sophocles went maroon, merely nodding in return.

Slowly but surely, they picked their way through the gardens toward the mansion. Things were going well— perhaps a little too well.

Moon had taken the lead again, determined not to dwell on memories long past; she stuck her head around the corner of a boxed thicket and spotted four grunts, outfitted in grey and carrying what looked to be machine guns.

She hastily backed up, bumping into Hau; he let out a quiet _oof_ when her elbow hit his stomach.

“Who's there? Show yourself!”

“Go, _go_!” hissed Moon, flapping her hands at the other three. “Behind those trees, over there!”

Lillie and Sophocles had gone pale with fright; even Hau looked drained, his eyes wide and mouth tight. Moon kept herself curled behind the tree, shutting her own eyes and willing herself to breathe quietly, to not hyperventilate even though her body was crying, straining for air. Her stomach rolled. If they were found, if they were caught—nobody would be safe, nobody would be able to rescue them.

There was an odd, quiet thud; like a rock hitting another rock. The approaching footsteps paused; then resumed once more but— thankfully— in the opposite direction, the sound receding.

“Y'all are fuckin' lucky I ain't one of those Rocket bastards, otherwise you'd be dead.”

Moon nearly screamed, only stopping it with her own hands as her heart thudded wildly, knees giving out; she sank, a puppet with cut strings. Hau managed to catch her by the arms before she hit the ground.

Guzma came out from behind a different tree. His expression was nonchalant, though Moon could see stress in his eyes; she realized that Plumeria and probably everyone else in Team Skull was stuck inside the mansion, too. That was another hundred and twenty-odd people who could die any second, who could be already dead.

“Glad you showed up,” he continued. “I was trying to figure out whether or not it would be worth it to start knifing these idiots— can't shoot 'em, not without calling down the fuckin' cavalry.”

“I am,” Moon said, once she could catch her breath, “so _incredibly_ glad to see you.”

Her voice came out shaky, and Guzma eyed her for a few moments. “Never thought I'd see you scared of anything,” he commented. “Thought you were as stupid brave as the kid. He's in Kanto by now, right?”

“He left three days ago,” confirmed Moon. “The day I became Champion. We've talked a bit, but the time difference is kind of shitty. I miss him.”

She was babbling, and her sight was beginning to blur. Guzma sighed, sounding aggrieved.

“Come here, kid,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“W-what for?”

“Just fucking come here.”

Moon took a couple of steps closer. Guzma's expression, now that she could see it, looked slightly pained. He very carefully lifted his arms.

“Are you hugging me?”

“You're sad. Plumeria told me I have to hug the kids when they're sad.” He sounded annoyed. “Everyone asks me if I'm hugging them. Do they not believe their own fucking eyes?”

“It's not their eyes they don't believe,” said Hau. He sounded as though he were trying not to laugh. “You just don't seem like a very huggy person.”

“Comes with the territory.” Guzma let go of Moon. “Did it help?”

“Um— marginally.” She was more touched by the intention behind the gesture than by the gesture itself. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome. Don't mention it. _Ever_.”

“Sure thing.”

“So, you got a plan?”

“We know how to get in, but the only door is through the front.”

Guzma rolled his eyes. “None of you know how to think like criminals. Who said you have to use a door? There's a whole bunch of fuckin' windows, and you're not going to walk into whoever they've got camped in the foyer.”

Lillie went scarlet. “O-oh,” she said, her voice going high. “Um— that's my fault. Sorry.”

“Nah, don't apologize.” Guzma waved her off. “You're all good kids, you wouldn't think like that. I don't usually hang out on the first floor, so I dunno what windows would be good.”

“I can check for rooms with nobody in them,” volunteered Sophocles, tapping on Rotom.

Guzma eyed the Dex. “That's hers, isn't it?”

“It's a loaner,” Moon assured him. “He's how we can get in through doors, if we need to. Without key cards and stuff.”

“Oh thank fuck. I hate the fuckin' key cards.”

“Okay,” said Sophocles. “Um, it looks like there's a room with nobody in it on the other side of the mansion from where we are. The window is... um, the first one behind the fence?”

Guzma squinted at him. “You mean the fancy pointy metal fence?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I think there's a guard at the gate.”

“Can we get rid of him?” At Guzma's skeptical stare, Moon hastened to qualify. “Not like, killing him.”

“We can distract him. If Soph can hack open the gate, I'll chuck a rock and we'll all sneak in.”

This was a more solid plan than any they had come up with so far; it was oddly bracing. Moon nodded. “Okay, let's go.”

They had come around to the east side of the mansion, and now had to backtrack toward the west. Guzma took point, peering around every corner and walking so quietly that Moon almost couldn't hear his footsteps. She tried to follow his lead.

“Been watching the guards walk around for about two hours now,” he said. Moon peered over at Rotom and was surprised to find that it was nearly twelve. “Lucky I was out for a smoke break when the goons got here. Otherwise I'd be trapped inside with the kids. I tried texting Plumes and some of the others, but nobody's answering.”

“I think they've got a signal blocker on the mansion,” volunteered Sophocles. “Whoever's doing Team Rocket's IT knows how to program security, but fortunately they're also pretty dumb.”

“They changed the wi-fi password to ' _password_ ,' ” explained Moon, at Guzma's raised eyebrows.

“Arceus fuck, that's a whole new level of dumbassery. I know shit-all about tech and even I know you don't make your password ' _password_.' ”

It took some time, and once they had to hide in the trees and bushes as a pair of patrolling gunmen passed. Moon finally got a good look at the uniform; her blood ran cold and she turned to stare at Guzma.

“What?” he said grumpily.

“I only _just_ realized where I've seen these particular uniforms recently.”

He sighed. “Okay, I know it probably looks bad.”

“ _I thought they were Foxes_!”

“The Foxes don't wear grey. They wear black.” Guzma waved one hand at his head. “Sometimes an orange bandanna, if they're not on some stealth bullshit.”

“Where did you see them, Moon?” asked Lillie.

“At the Lake of the Sunne,” answered Moon, still glaring at Guzma. “With Kohaku, Emmett, and Jack.”

Hau winced. “Oh, shit.”

“Look,” said Guzma firmly, “I know I've done a lot of bad shit. Frankly, I've done a lot of shit that I should be going to fucking jail for. I don't know why Ms. Wicke thinks I'm worth anything outside a cell. But I didn't have any fuckin' say about the Foxes inviting Team Rocket to Po Town. That was all Van. All I could do was get them to agree that the house was off-limits for both the Foxes and the Rockets.”

“But you _knew_.”

Guzma's face hardened. “Yeah, I knew,” he said shortly. “What do you want me to say, Moon? I didn't tell anyone. Nobody would have fuckin' believed me before Ultra Space, I'm a criminal myself. If I betrayed them then, I'd have been worse than dead. But ever since I got back from Ultra Space two months ago, I've woken up every night screaming about fuckin' alien jellyfish from hell in my brain and I've been trying to sort out the mess in my own goddamn head. I've got a therapist, which sometimes helps but mostly doesn't. I'm in some kind of counseling shit with Plumeria, because apparently we're codependent or some shit and we have to learn to not be toxic. So I've been kinda busy. Couldn't do shit about the timing, either.”

Moon opened her mouth to reply, but found she didn't have anything to say. She blinked, angry tears making their way down her face.

“I'm helping now,” concluded Guzma. “So that's going to just have to be enough for you. Let's go rescue our fuckin' families.”

They had reached the gate, remaining hidden in trees and bushes. There was a lone gunman with a large gun standing at the gate. Guzma pointed at the gunman, mimed a door opening with his hands, and pointed at Sophocles before holding up one finger. He reached down with his free hand, picking up a pebble; then he drew his arm back and hurled it further away from the gate, behind one of the thickets.

The pebble clinked against the concrete, and the gunman stirred, squinting. Guzma threw another pebble; this time, the guard pushed himself up from where he'd been leaning on the wall and began walking in the direction of the sounds.

Guzma frantically gestured at Sophocles, who nodded and began typing; Moon could hear an electronic click in the direction of the gate and promptly began moving, ushering her friends forward. The gate opened with a quiet creak and they all slipped through; Guzma, the last one, closed it after, and Sophocles locked it with another click.

There was a hedge that would hide them from the guard, but the window that Sophocles had indicated was a safe entry point was right there and a few more taps caused another electronic click before the window slid slowly upwards. It was higher up than Moon had realized. Hau beckoned to Guzma, the second-tallest of their group, and they put their hands together, a foothold for whoever would climb up.

“Who's first?” whispered Guzma.

Moon raised her hand and stepped forward, one foot on Hau's and Guzma's hands while they hoisted her up and through the window. She brought her feet down as quietly as she could, slowly setting them down on the floor, and looked around. The room was full of filing cabinets.

Sophocles was next, and then Lillie; then Guzma boosted Hau up— Hau's shoulders were a bit of a tight fit through the window, but he made it through with some very quiet swearing— and then Hau reached down to pull Guzma up and through.

They had made it; they were inside. Sophocles closed the window most of the way— not enough to make it click, in case the guard was already back.

“Okay,” said Guzma softly. “We're in. What next?”

* * * * *

He was looking at Moon, which— well, okay. She was in charge. That was something.

“We want everyone to stay safe while we're rescuing them,” she said truthfully. “So I think we're going to have to incapacitate the Team Rocket grunts.”

“So knocked out and tied up,” said Guzma. “Lucky for you I have an Ariados. Where do we stow bodies?”

“In here, I think. Lillie, what's this room?”

“One of the family archives— I think this is mostly my grandfather's work.”

“So nobody's coming in here?”

“Probably not.”

Moon nodded. “So we'll get them tied up and bring them here,” she said, nodding. “How do we get them knocked out or to stay still or whatever?”

“Stun and paralyze,” said Guzma, his tone a little curt. “I've done this before—"

"You have?"

"And I'm not fucking talking about it," he said, without missing a beat. "I have a Vikavolt. Obviously Soph's an Electric captain, and if I remember right two of you have Electric-types on your team as well. Thunder Shock is about as good as a taser, for humans. Less noisy, too.”

“I should probably be occupied with Rotom,” said Sophocles, looking anxiously at Moon. “Is that okay?”

“That's fine,” Moon assured him. “Ben and Uila and Guzma's Vikavolt should be able to more than handle it. Is there anything else we should worry about?”

“Cameras,” said Lillie.

“One second,” said Sophocles, tapping several times on Rotom's screen. “And... gone.”

“ _Gone_?”

“I turned all of them off.”

Guzma frowned. “Won't that tell them someone's breaking in?”

“They're already expecting Moon at some point,” said Sophocles, shrugging. “They don't know about the rest of us. And I made it look like a power failure, instead of sabotage. I cut some other power things too— random ones. Overhead lights in the kitchens and bathrooms, and one of the refrigerators. A couple of video games systems being used.” He paused. “Okay, all of the video games systems being used. They're villains, they don't get to play video games.”

Moon grinned. “Petty. I love it. Can you check and see if there are guards in the hall?”

Sophocles consulted Rotom. “No, you're clear. There's a pair around the corner, standing outside a bigger room— there's only one person in there.”

“Which corner?” said Lillie, peering at the screen over Sophocles' shoulder to look at the map Rotom had made. “Oh I see, the orange dots are people? Um, that's the main archives office.”

“Are there multiple entrances?” asked Moon.

“No, just one.”

“So maybe we take out whoever's in there, and then stow bodies in there because it's bigger and there are more places to hide.”

“And it clears the escape route,” said Guzma, nodding. “In case we gotta get out real quick. Good thinking.”

They silently filed out of the room, tiptoeing toward the end of the hall. There was another archives room, also empty of people; but that was the archives room for the work of Lillie's father, and did not have a window.

The map that Rotom had obligingly pulled up, with orange dots indicating humans, showed that the guards were about halfway down the corridor perpendicular to where they stood. Guzma pointed to himself, then reached for his belt and let out one of his Pokémon.

Moon had of course seen a Vikavolt before— Hau had fought the Totem-sized version in Sophocles' trial, and she'd also battled Guzma several times now. For her experiences she found Vikavolt no less creepy-looking than before, especially when it eyed her malevolently, widening its pincers.

Guzma caught the pincers before they could snap closed, with quick hands. “Quiet, Vika,” he said softly. “We're on a stealth mission.”

“Does it not like me or something?”

“Not important.” Guzma bent, looking at his Pokémon with eyes that went oddly soft; Moon felt like she was intruding, and looked away. “Go on the ceiling, doll. Stay on this side of the hall. Go slow and quiet and wait for my signal, then take down those guards.”

“Zzz,” said the Vikavolt, her voice barely a murmur over the soft ambient hum of the mansion.

“Attagirl. Go on.” Guzma patted her affectionately, and Moon watched as Vikavolt crawled up the wall to the ceiling before turning the corner.

“Uila could probably go on the ceiling too,” she said, glancing at Hau. “Not Ben, though. He might be okay to get at someone underneath a door, or sitting down.”

“Right,” said Hau.

Guzma released his Ariados, running a hand absently over the short, spiky fur that made Moon's skin crawl.

“But the Vikavolt doesn't like me though?”

Guzma glared at Moon. “She doesn't like your Metagross particularly, but that includes you by default. Can you maybe not ask useless fucking questions until we are not risking our own and everyone else's lives by just _talking_.”

“I'm _nervous_ , okay? Team Rocket is a nasty fucking piece of work and I'm a special target to them.”

His brows creased, as though he were confused; but then he turned and poked his head around the corner; then pulled back, placed his hand on the ground with three fingers out, and stuck them around the edge of the wall. One finger down, two fingers down, three—

There were some soft crackling and zapping noises, followed by a very soft thump.

Guzma got to his feet and briskly turned the corner. “Wrap 'em up, Stripey.”

The Ariados eagerly darted forward; the two guards were still upright, though beginning to slump against the wall. One was attempting to reach for his gun, but Guzma pulled a wooden baton from the man's belt and smacked his hand.

“Lillie, Hau, the one on the right,” he said, pointing at the furthest guard. “Moon and Soph, the one on the left.”

Ariados wrapped and gagged the guards quickly, before they could fall over. Hau and Lillie carried one guard back to the archives room, and Moon and Sophocles took the other. Guzma followed, recalling Vikavolt but keeping Ariados out, riding on his back with limbs wrapped around his arms like a creepy backpack. He dug in a pocket, withdrawing a small sack; it was beans, and Moon was pleased to see that the brand was Lunarbean.

“He'll keep making silk if he's well fed. Otherwise he'll run out, and I dunno how much we're going to need.”

They left the guards twitching, locked into the smaller archive room; then returned to the door of the larger office.

Guzma looked at Moon and Hau. “That was a demonstration,” he said. “So next time one of you can do it.”

“Thanks,” said Moon. “Nothing like a first-hand object lesson.”

“What did you mean by being a special target for Team Rocket?”

“I grew up with Red and Blue and was like a low-key minor celebrity because they let me hang out with them sometimes. And one of the Foxes I, um, met in Po Town said that was why.”

Guzma stared at her for a moment, then slowly closed his eyes. “And you still came here.”

“Did you expect me to stay home when practically everyone who could do this instead is imprisoned?”

“Nah. You're just an idiot, that's all.”

The insult was half-hearted; he seemed more worried than anything else.

“Should we go in?” asked Sophocles.

“Where's the guy in the room relative to the door?”

“At the other end of it.”

“There are shelves and things, so if they're at the other end they probably won't see us right away,” said Lillie.

Moon nodded at Sophocles. “Open it.”

The door clicked. It seemed loud in the quiet hallway. Moon carefully opened it— there were no squeaky doors at Aether Paradise, thankfully— and peered inside.

It was mostly shelves and filing cabinets, a fairly cramped room; but there was a desk, with an empty chair sat at it. And she could hear someone talking.

“...yeah, no. I don't give a fuck about your fuckin' islands. You can just build more of them, motherfucker. It's better than goddamn Hoenn, that's for fuckin' certain.” A pause; Moon silently beckoned the others inside, and Sophocles closed the door. “No, _you_ listen, you little rat. I don't care how many goddamn doctors you are, or should be, or whatever the fuck you keep talking about justice for. Why the fuck are you askin' _me_ about it, huh? I'm just as much a criminal as any of the guys here. More, in some ways. Van's the boss, sure, but he never killed as many people as I did. Not with his own bare hands.” A second pause. “No, I'm counting the long-ago shit, too. I flooded my whole goddamn country, and I'd fucking do it again. Why would you bother with _justice_ or whatever when you can just kill 'em and drop 'em off the deck for Sharpedo chum? Ain't my problem what you want with your science shit.” A final pause. “No. Literally, no. I don't give a fuck. You live on a floating island, but you're still a fuckin' landlubber. Fuck right off.”

There was a loud beep, and footsteps; Moon put one hand on her belt, waiting.

The man that came around the corner stopped short, blinking at them. He was tall, muscular, and tanned; the very open shirt revealed this, as did the lack of sleeves. A blue bandanna covered his dark hair.

“Oh,” he said, nonchalantly. “I guess you're probably the kid they told us to look out for, huh.”

“There's five of us,” said Moon, though her heart was in her mouth. “You're going to have to clarify who you mean.”

“You. The smartass.” The man snorted. “Yeah, I can see what the rat meant. He used a lot of twenty-dollar words to say it, but you're already pissing me off and you've said like two things.”

“Drop the phone,” said Guzma. Moon turned to look at him and did a double-take; he was holding a gun.

“Ooh, scary,” said the man mockingly, setting his phone down on the desk. “And _you're_ one of the ones who was missing when Van did headcount— you and some little cross-dressing twerp. I wasn't paying attention.”

Sophocles made a tiny squeaking noise.

“He's not a cross-dresser,” said Guzma calmly. “But that's not the point. Thanks for letting me know that, by the way. Didn't think anyone else got out.” He smiled, his eyes narrowing. “And if I could have picked two people who could fuck you all up the most, it'd be me and Al, so you're out of luck today.”

“What's so scary about some tiny fa—”

“Don't finish that sentence,” said Hau, his voice mild. “Really, just don't.”

The man squinted at them, then shrugged and sat down at the desk, crossing his legs and sticking them up on the pile of paperwork. He wore oddly fancy leather boots and, Moon was just now beginning to realize, looked like a pirate.

“What's your name, asshat?” said Guzma.

“Archie.”

Moon felt her jaw physically drop. “Oh my god, no you're not.”

“Whaddya want, my birth certificate?” He snorted. “I know I'm not _your_ Archie anyway. The two brats and Stevie McMoneybags won in this world, and your Archie's in jail. I'm a different Archie.”

“What do you mean, a _different_ Archie?”

“Ah, fuck,” sighed Guzma. “He really did it. Van really fucking did it, he wasn't lying.”

“He sure did. I don't mind coming to play with you all.” He reached for his belt, picking up what Moon recognized, with shock, as a Master Ball. “Not a whole lot to do once you're the pirate king, anyway. Open seas and sky, but after a while it gets boring.”

“What are you _talking_ about?”

“Parallel universe,” said Guzma curtly. “Van had Faba stall his speech at the press conference, then opened a fucking wormhole to transport a bunch of Team Rocket mooks and, apparently, this asshat.”

The realization slid over her slowly, ice in her spine. “He's— Archie? But— there's a _parallel universe_?”

“There's a whole bunch of 'em, little guppy,” said Archie cheerfully. “I'm from the best one. The one where I won.”

“You made your world deadass something out of that ocean game Al plays,” said Guzma. “What's it called, Soph?”

“Subnautica,” murmured Sophocles quietly.

“Yeah, that.”

“You're mostly right,” said Archie, indicating Guzma with a lazy wave of his hand. “ 'Cept it ain't Team Rocket anymore. It's Team _Rainbow_ Rocket.”

“Prismjet,” said Moon, smacking her forehead and turning to look at Sophocles. "Prism for rainbow, jet for rocket."

He sighed. “Oh, that'd do it.”

“Whatcha got in that Master Ball?” said Guzma.

Archie grinned. “You wanna find out?”

“I'd like to know first. If you open it I'll fucking shoot you _and_ whatever comes out.”

“Sacrilege,” snickered Archie. “It's Kyogre, duh. Think I'd need a Master Ball for anything else?”

“What the _fuck_ ,” said Moon, appalled. “Why would you capture a legendary?”

“I told you, I'm the pirate king. Can't be a king without a kingdom, and a pirate's kingdom is the sea.”

“But it's not _our_ Kyogre,” said Guzma, his gaze and hand unwavering. “So I'll pump it full of lead if you let it out. I don't give a shit.”

“I'm not lettin' him out, relax. He's too big to fit in the house, we'd all fucking suffocate and take out a couple of walls and shit. I didn't come here just to die."

“Then put it back in your belt.”

Archie replaced the ball, holding up his hands. “All right, all right, keep your hair on.”

“Let out Ben,” said Guzma, still looking at Archie.

“Let out what now?” Moon let Ben out of his ball. “Oh, you weren't talking to me.”

“Shock him,” said Guzma, his tone curt. “Not enough to kill, just enough to make life difficult.”

“Oh, come on, that ain't fair,” complained Archie.

“Ben.”

Ben needed no further urging; with a hiss, he shocked Archie, who jerked wildly in the chair. Stripey began wrapping him up.

“Go get the other two lunkheads and bring them in here,” ordered Guzma. “Be careful.”

Moon, Hau, Lillie, and Sophocles went to retrieve the guards, pairing off to lift silkwrapped bodies.

“All right, Moon?” said Hau.

“Yes and no. I'm contemplating the existence of parallel universes.”

Archie and the two guards were stowed behind one of the bookshelves, well out of view of the door. They were about to leave when the phone started ringing.

“Don't answer it,” said Guzma dismissively.

“What if someone comes looking for him because we didn't answer?”

“Hang on, I've got this.” Hau strode forward, grabbing a random piece of paper from the desk and a pen. In a messy scrawl he wrote, _went 2 bathroom, back in 20. maybe longer. lil bit constipated_. “That should do it.”

They taped the note onto the door and locked it, and then Sophocles brought up the map once more so they could decide on their next move.

“It looks like most of the Skulls are in the ballroom,” said Moon, pointing at the mass of orange dots. “I'm guessing there are guards to keep them in line.”

“As much as I hate to say it,” said Guzma, oddly quiet, “we have to get them last. If we take out whoever's got them and they start running around the mansion, they could get hurt.”

“I think you're right.” Moon met his gaze. “Sorry, I know that probably sucks.”

“Is what it is.” He shrugged, looking back down. “But that assclown gave us some useful information. They haven't found Almas.”

“Do you think we should find him?”

“Yeah.” Guzma's gaze slid, oddly, to Sophocles; but then back down to the map. “First off, if they do end up catching him, that could be... really bad. They know some stuff about Al, or at least the mook in there knew enough to be rude about it. But that means Al's alone and probably scared, and I bet you anything he'd rather be with us than wherever he is right now.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Moon. “And if he's been hiding inside, he probably has more information about what the guards have been doing, or where people are. He'll be able to help us.”

“That, too. So we have to figure out which little orange dot is Almas.”

Sophocles made a pinching motion over the map, and suddenly light shot up from the screen; a holographic projection hovered in the air above it. It was three-dimensional, showing multiple floors of the mansion.

Moon blinked. “Did I know you could do that?”

“No, bzzt,” said Rotom, a touch smugly.

“So we can eliminate ourselves,” said Sophocles, ignoring both of them and poking the holographic display. “Turn us green, Rotom?”

Five dots in the westernmost hallway turned green.

“And we can eliminate the three we've taken out. They should be, um— yellow.”

Three dots in the archives office turned yellow.

“So how do we find Al?” Guzma wondered, staring at the display.

“We eliminate the ones that _aren't_ Al.” Sophocles paused. “Rotom, please highlight all of the dots that are alone in a room. Turn them purple.”

There was a moment where nothing happened, but then exactly four dots lit up purple.

“That's still too many.”

“Just a moment, please,” said Sophocles— ever so politely, since he was addressing Guzma. “I think we can also eliminate any lone dots that have guards outside the door, as well.”

Two of the purple dots turned orange once more. The remaining two were not stationary, but moving. One moved casually through a hallway on the third floor, but the other—

“That one isn't on the first floor or the second floor,” said Moon, pointing. “It's between them.”

“That's Almas,” said Guzma immediately. “Where is he?”

“How do you know?”

“He's five-three and thin as bone. He's probably in the A/C. It's where I'd go, if I were alone and skinny enough.”

That made sense, though Moon was curious about the other moving dot— the guards seemed to patrol in pairs, unless they were stationary.

“We're trying to get close enough to find him,” she said, squinting. “Where's that vent? Rotom, can you add the ventilation shafts to the map?”

The result was only barely readable— there were many rooms and many vents but eventually, with a lot of zooming and projection, they decided that he was headed for Wicke's bedroom, on the third floor with most of the other domestic staff.

“He's probably thinking he might be able to find something that can help in there,” explained Lillie. “Wicke probably had her tablet with her at the press conference, but there's a chance she left her phone or pager in her room. And it's also possible that at least one of her Pokémon is there, too. I don't know what Pokémon Almas would have with him.”

“I think he's got a Sneasel,” said Guzma, his brow creasing. “A Mudbray too, I think. And I know there's one more... just can't put my finger on it.”

“Fletchling,” said Sophocles absently. “Though it might be a Fletchinder by now, he said it was close the other d—”

He suddenly stopped speaking, looking up at the rest of them with wide eyes.

“Is Almas your friend?” said Moon, offering him a smile.

Sophocles nodded, hesitantly.

“The one Molayne was teasing you about?”

He went pink, but nodded again.

“Okay, that's cool. We like Almas, he's really nice.”

“ _I_ already knew that,” said Guzma, his tone lofty. “So if he's trying to get to Wicke's room, we should head there too, right?”

“Yes, I think that would be best,” said Lillie.

Sophocles's face remained pink as they kept walking. Moon suspected that his relationship with Almas might not be as platonic as he had so far let on, but she wasn't going to say anything until she had proof.

* * * * *

It took time— mapping their route, ducking into empty rooms to hide from patrolling Team _Rainbow_ Rocket guards— but they managed to follow the signal they thought was Almas, heading up two floors to what was, apparently, Wicke's room. Moon stepped up to the door and knocked softly.

There was no answer.

“Almas,” she tried, through the door. “Almas, let us in. It's Moon.”

A tiny, relieved gasp; then footsteps, barely audible, and then the door slid softly open. Moon found herself with an armful as Almas crashed into her, arms clutching her tight around the waist.

“Hey— hey, it's okay. Let's go back into the room, it's quiet in there. It's pretty quiet out here too, but we don't want anyone to overhear us.”

“I-I-I thought,” gasped Almas, but he didn't seem to be able to continue to speak and his voice shook, oddly high-pitched.

They went back into the room, closing the door; Moon rubbed Almas's back, trying to be reassuring. He seemed to be wearing pajamas, but her hand ran over his shoulder to his shoulderblade and snagged on an unfamiliar texture. _Odd... though not necessarily out of the ordinary_.

“How'd you get out, kid?” said Guzma.

Almas paused, looking up and around the room with wide eyes; he took in Guzma, then Hau and Lillie, and then Sophocles. At this last his delicate, pale-brown skin took on a ruddy flush, spreading from cheeks to ears to neck; and he sat back slightly from Moon, looking down at the ground.

“U-um,” he stuttered, hands wringing nervously together, “I was hanging out with Jer 'n' Moonie and we heard the guys coming down the hallway and yelling. Heard Trinh and Uilani screaming and cussing, more than anything. And I, um. I hadn't gotten to, to, um, get some stuff. Because I slept in.” He peeked up anxiously at Guzma.

“Got it,” said Guzma, with a nod; clearly he understood what Almas was not saying.

“So Moonie got out Jer's toolbox and took the grate off while Jer piled all the mattresses up by the door, and they bought enough time to push me inside and screw the grate back on. I— I heard the guards get through to them.” His face crumpled. “Th-they asked for me too, and they w-w-weren't very nice so Jer cussed them out and they h-h-h-hit h-him—”

He dissolved entirely into sobs at this, and Moon automatically reached out again, pulling him back into a hug and rubbing his back.

“And you've just stayed in the vents?”

“I w-went to the n-nurse's station to see if I, if I could get my stuff. But they had people in the office waiting for me, so I couldn't. And I texted Soph for a bit—" He gestured at Sophocles. "But then the wi-fi wouldn't let me send any more messages. And Moonie said I should try to come up to Ms. Wicke's room, because she was at the press conference but it was probably one of the safest rooms in the house 'cause it had a biometric lock.”

“It does?” said Moon, looking over at the door.

“Yes,” said Lillie quietly. “Wicke used to keep her physical collection of the evidence of my mother's abuse here. There are both paper transcriptions and CD copies of voice logs, as well as some, um— well, once she threw a book and it cut my hand, and I bled onto the book. It's in here somewhere. She didn't trust Lusamine or Faba not to go snooping, so she paid out money for a biometric lock. She has to spit or bleed on the lock to get the door to open.”

“But I came in from the vents, so I didn't have to worry about that,” mumbled Almas. “So, yeah. That's me.” He glanced over at Guzma, swiping his hand across his teary eyes. “You went out to smoke, right?”

“Yeah. It was lucky, too.” Guzma's face went oddly blank. “Glad they didn't get you. It'd be— yeah. If they already knew about you, it could have been bad.”

“Feel free to tell me to fuck off if it's none of my business—”

“Fuck off then,” murmured Guzma under his breath.

Moon ignored him, addressing Almas. “But I'm not completely stupid. Guzma's said some cryptic things about you, Sophocles has said a few more, and Gladion told me he wasn't going to tell me exactly what you'd been through to bring you to Team Skull. And I get that, that's private and everything. But the thing that makes you a target of interest to all the thugs hanging around— that's kind of important. Trust me, I wouldn't be asking about this if we were not in like, a dire emergency.”

Almas had gone oddly still.

“Can't you guess?” he said finally, and there was something thin and bitter in his tone. “Hau's little sisters knew five seconds after they met me. Ms. Wicke had to know for medical reasons. It's not hard, if you look at me for more than five seconds.”

Moon met his gaze. “I can see plenty of things, but I don't want to come to the wrong conclusion. I'd rather know you as you know yourself.”

She hadn't been sure it was the right thing to say, but Almas's shoulders slumped, some tension palpably fading away.

“I'm,” he began, but had to swallow heavily. “Um. I'm— a boy. That everyone thought was a girl, for a long time. Including me.”

It was what Moon had thought. "And the reason they would have been looking for you?"

He shrugged. "Most people think I'm just— sick or something. I'm starting to— to transition. Medically. And when you're like, dependent on a medical treatment it means that people have power over you. They would have used it to make the other Skulls cooperate. It was just— it was just better if I didn't get captured."

“That makes sense, and I appreciate you telling me." Moon cleared her throat. "Um, I'm glad you found that out about yourself. That's better for you, right?”

“Better in that I'm marginally less at risk to off myself, sure.”

“All right,” said Guzma, before Moon could respond to that. “Let's not get morbid, kid. You're a boy and that's the whole goddamn point. They seriously had someone down in the nurse station guarding your T?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “Assholes.”

It produced a flicker of a smile on Almas's face, but no more than that. Moon nodded in agreement and decided it might be the wiser course to change the subject. “So we got to Almas. Where do we go from here?”

“Al, what do you know about these idiots?”

“Not much,” admitted Almas. “I think there's six leaders. I went through one of the ballroom vents to get here and I actually saw everyone, for a little bit. One of them is Van, he's here— I think he's got Wicke. Faba was with him, being a prick like usual.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” muttered Guzma, his mouth going tight.

“Then there were two who kept arguing all the time. They're Archie and Maxie—”

“You're fucking kidding me,” sighed Moon.

“We took care of Archie,” added Guzma.

“Oh. Um, I didn't get any of the other guys' names. Maxie had red hair and glasses. There was a really tall guy who also had red hair, and a dude with kind of aqua-blue hair— about the same color as Rog. And one dude with light green hair and a really ugly cape.” He paused, frowning. “Maxie was in charge of locking up trial captains in somewhere called the domestic staff wing. I'm not really sure where that is. Cape guy was dealing with Lillie's mom but also the Pokémon professors, because they got knocked out. Blue-haired guy had the kahunas and Elite Four. And the tall redhead guy had a bunch of minions and is watching all of Team Skull. They're in the ballroom, I think— largest room in the house.”

“We're in the domestic staff wing right now,” said Lillie. “Which means this Maxie is probably close by. Sophocles, could you pull up the map?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Moon peered at the display for a few moments, but it was Hau who poked a finger in first. “Okay, so this room has six people on the inside and two outside. Wanna bet that's the trial captains?”

“Why would there be six inside the room, though?” Guzma frowned. “They've got Ilima, Lana, Mallow, Kiawe, and Mina, but we have Sophocles and they'd have put Ace with the Elite Four.”

“Maybe that's Maxie?” offered Almas timidly. “I think he's probably guarding them in person.”

“What was Archie supposed to be guarding?”

“He wasn't really guarding anything,” admitted the younger boy. “Um, he's kind of— well, I think Van decided he was annoying and just wanted him at the other end of the house from Maxie, so they would stop fighting each other.”

“Usually, when Van finds something annoying, he fucking shoots it,” muttered Guzma, rolling his eyes. “What'd you think of this Maxie, Al? What was your impression?”

Almas didn't answer immediately, and though Guzma's expression was not patient he didn't press for a response. “Um,” he said finally. “Obviously. Archie was really— not very intimidating? I'm more scared of you on any given day than I was scared of him.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I thought you liked being intimidating,” remarked Moon.

“Used to,” said Guzma, his voice thin. “Not really so much anymore. I've got a hundred-some kids to take care of, they need to ask me for shit so that Plumeria doesn't have to work so hard. That's part of the codependent therapy shit.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He waved a hand, resigned. “Don't worry about it. Al, what else about Maxie?”

“He's very, um— stiff. Formal. Obviously Van is like— you know, _Van_. The guy with the cape gave off super creepy vibes, like he's sick in the head or something. The guy with the blue hair seemed like he was just out in space most of the time. And the tall guy with red hair was sort of... weirdly... charming?” Almas was turning pink again. “But in like, a creepy way. It was sort of like, if you talked to him for long enough you would probably start to trust him a little even though you know you can't trust him.”

“Oh, one of _those_.” Guzma's nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I get you.”

“But Maxie was kind of, um— uptight. Sort of like that Faba character, but with less of a temper.”

Moon and Hau exchanged conspiratorial glances. “Perfect,” she said, grinning. “If he's anything like Faba, we know _exactly_ how to piss him off.”

The corridor that potentially contained the trial captains was nearby. This time Uila crept along the ceiling along with Guzma's Ariados. Once they were knocked out, Ariados prevented them from falling over and giving the game away with loud thuds. Moon, Hau, Lillie, and Sophocles were once again on body-moving duty, this time shuffling the unconscious, silk-wrapped guards into the neighboring room and securing them to bedframes. Almas watched, wide-eyed.

“I want an Ariados now,” he whispered.

“Right?” agreed Moon. Ariados preened, climbing onto Guzma's shoulder as the latter tossed a few Pokébeans up for the former to catch. “How are we going in, Guzma?”

He considered for a few moments, then turned to Sophocles. “Can you unlock this door without alerting whoever's inside?"

“I'm not sure.”

“Okay. Wait on that then.” He squatted by the door, peering at the hinges. “Hey, Lillie, don't you have a Lopunny?”

“I do.”

“Neat. Would he mind kicking out the door once I get the hinge pins out?”

Lillie smiled, pulling Lapin's Pokéball from her belt. “I don't think he would mind at all.”

It was slow work, in order to keep everything quiet; but carefully, one by one, Guzma removed the pins that kept the door attached at the hinges.

“Soph, you unlock the door right before the bunny kicks it down.” Guzma took the gun out of his pocket, holding it steadily pointed at the door. “Whenever you're ready.”

Lapin looked at Sophocles inquiringly. Sophocles took a breath, nodded, and tapped on Rotom's screen.

There was a loud click. Someone moved inside the room, taking fast steps toward the door; but Lapin got there first.

The door flew inward, smacking a solid body before they scrambled out of the way. Guzma went in first, gun at the ready.

The five trial captains were gagged and bound, sitting on beds at the far end of the room. The sixth person had been the one hit by the door and was definitely Maxie, decided Moon, based on Almas's description of him. His hands slowly rose in the air as his sullen gaze flicked over each of them.

“Guzma Mahelona,” he said, with a slight nod. “And Almas Karim, the missing child. I assume from the resemblance that one of the young ladies is related to President Mohn?”

Lillie rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

“And this young man reminds me of one of the kahunas, so I must assume a relationship there as well.” Maxie's head jerked slightly toward Hau. “The other two of you, however, escape my knowledge.”

“Soph,” said Sophocles absently, still peering at Rotom. “I'd say it's a pleasure, but in this instance I think honesty's more important than manners.”

That earned a huff of laughter. “Clever lad. It's so rare to meet someone who has the wit to engage in proper banter. And you, young lady?”

Moon considered Maxie dispassionately. “I like you better than Faba,” she decided out loud. “But only marginally. Moon Hawkins, Champion of the Alola League, at your service.” She paused. “Well, not _your_ service. But you get the idea.”

“Indeed.” Maxie's expression grew wary, his eyes turning to the gun and back again to Moon. “Given that use of my ace would, in all reality, sink this vile island into the ocean, I will elect to forfeit any challenge of battle you may offer. I have no wish to die today. Also, the accounts of you from Ms. Wicke, a sensible woman, and Dr. Faba, a decidedly unsensible man, indicate that you are far more skilled in battle than I am.”

“We definitely weren't planning on trial by single combat,” snorted Moon, withdrawing Ben from his ball. “Parallel universe?”

“Indeed.”

“Same one as Archie, or a different one?”

Maxie's face went an ugly, blotchy red to match his hair. “The Archie of my world is long dead,” he sneered. “He died screaming for my mercy, swallowed by Groudon's fire. I had hoped never to deal with his idiocy again, but here we are.”

“What if,” suggested Moon, turning to Guzma, “we tied him up but didn't knock him out, and we brought him down to the room where we stowed Archie and woke _him_ up, and they had to sit in the same room?”

“Death would be preferable,” said Maxie immediately. “I would get on my knees and _beg_ for it.”

Moon smiled at him, making sure it was her toothiest, meanest grin. “I know.”

“If they're awake, they might figure out how to escape. Sleep is safer,” pointed out Guzma. “It would be funny, but too risky. Zap him.”

Moon nodded to Ben and Maxie was, accordingly, zapped.

Hau, Lillie, and Almas had already gone over to untie the trial captains. Ilima was rubbing his wrists, expression rather shaken; Lana sat still and quiet, staring at the ground. Kiawe's mouth was a flat, angry line, and Mallow seemed on the verge of tears.

“Are you guys okay?” said Moon softly.

“No,” said Mina. Her voice was thin. “The first thing they did was lock all of the Aether employees up, obviously. The first ten or so tried to fight back, but they—” She broke off, mouth trembling.

Moon swallowed, understanding. “Where?”

“Dumped overboard.” Kiawe's voice was hoarse. “The Sharpedo have probably gotten to them by now— there was enough blood for them to smell it.”

“ _Don't_ ,” wailed Mallow, the tears spilling over.

“Everyone cooperated after that," continued Mina. "They locked the regular employees in their apartments, along with the reporters and whatnot from the mainlands. All of us were taken over to the mansion— they'd already gotten to Team Skull by then. We were all put in the ballroom at first. Hapu and Nanu had been—” Her mouth trembled again, but she pressed onward. “Tased. So were Molayne and Kahili. They got Acerola with a dart gun— she's been unconscious, otherwise she'd have been rescuing everybody with her ghosts.”

“I was wondering about that,” said Guzma. “Ace wouldn't have gone down without a fight.”

“They had a sniper on her,” said Ilima. “She was one of the first ones they got. Her and Olivia, and the professors.”

“They're quicker on the draw,” realized Moon, nodding. “Acerola's a Ghost-type user and has some insane magic independent of her Pokémon. Olivia battles all the time as part of pulling double duty for Nanu, and Professor Kukui moonlights as a professional battler. I'm not sure about Professor Burnet.”

“She told me she interned at Interpol when she was just out of college,” said Lillie quietly. “She said she just did coffee runs and filing mostly, but I always felt she wasn't telling the whole story.”

“So probably a certified badass, got it.” Moon looked at Mina. “They took you all to the ballroom. What next?”

Mina's eyes flicked to Lillie; then away. “Faba, he... he'd already tased Wicke. So she wasn't, um, she wasn't doing so well. And he, um. He...”

Her voice trailed off, eyes dropping.

“What did he do?” Lillie's voice was falling snow: cold and soft.

“He beat her.” It was Lana who spoke, for the first time. She was still staring at the ground. “Quite badly.”

She did not qualify the statement further, and the silence from the other trial captains was telling.

Moon swallowed. “How badly?”

“Broken nose and cheekbones, possibly chipped or broken teeth, dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, possible internal bleeding.” Ilima's voice was oddly harsh. “Mostly he was just kicking her while she was lying on the ground. Close to the end of it, he aimed and she caught his foot, then jerked it sideways and yanked. So he's got a sprained ankle and his dignity's quite bruised, but after that was when he really started in on her face. She— she's probably going to need reconstructive surgery, if...” He swallowed.

The silence was louder than any words they could have said. Moon had already decided that Faba was going to suffer today, but a glance at Lillie made her think that the man's suffering would be most suitably left in the hands of her friend.

“I see.” Lillie's voice was clipped. She turned to Moon, with a slight glance at Guzma. “Where are we going next?”

“Elite Four and kahunas. I thought about rescuing Lusamine and the professors next, but frankly if we rescued Lusamine we would need somebody to guard her anyway. We might as well let whoever has her do it for us.”

Ilima, Lana, Kiawe, and Mallow all looked horrified, but Mina's expression was knowing. “I doubt it will do her much harm,” she murmured, with a sly glance at Lillie. “By all accounts, she's a raging bitch herself.”

“Quite,” said Lillie, and that was, quite simply, that.

* * * * *

With five trial captains added to their party they now numbered eleven. Nobody's Pokémon had been confiscated— Van had evidently made it quite clear that any Pokémon found outside their balls would be promptly killed, and nobody was going to risk their teammates on that account. But eleven was a large number to sneak through the halls.

“Would you be willing to patrol?” Moon asked the trial captains. “Take out wandering guards and incapacitate them? We've been electrocuting and tying them up, then leaving them in smaller rooms.”

Lana nodded, hand going to her belt. “I have Lanturn and Araquanid, so I can do the same thing.”

“I haven't got anything to electrocute, but Ribombee knows Sleep Powder,” suggested Mina. “She's tiny anyway, good for stealth.”

“I have a Ribombee too, I should have thought of that.” Lillie sighed.

The trial captains split into two groups— Mina and Kiawe, and Ilima, Lana, and Mallow— and headed cautiously out into the mansion. That left the six of them together to try and work out where the Elite Four and kahunas were being kept. Rotom was able to isolate it fairly quickly, however; a room with eight occupants and four guards outside the door, was identified by Lillie as the family library, on the same floor but at the other end of the house.

“Four guards is trickier,” noted Moon, studying the setup. “They've got two stationary outside the door, and then two who walk back and forth down the hallway. We'll have to get all four of them at the same time.”

Guzma indicated Lillie. “Your Ribombee and my Stripey get the door guards,” he said. “They go on the ceiling. Sleep Powder and wrap. We split into two groups and get around to the sides, then take out the walkers. Me, Al, and Soph for one with Vika; Moon, Hau and Lillie with whoever you want for the other one.”

“Uila could probably mess with his head with psychic stuff,” suggested Hau. “And he can go on the ceiling, too.”

“Good call,” agreed Moon. “Let's get to it.”

To her surprise, it went without a hitch. Moon watched Uila shock the walking guard on their side, and then Psychic kept the man from falling over and hitting the floor. She wasn't sure how they'd managed on the other side but she could see two wrapped bodies at the center of the hallway, with Ariados scuttling back to Guzma as Char flitted to Lillie. All of the bodies were stowed in what seemed to be a large custodial closet, which made Lillie's mouth turn sour.

“She used to make me do housework when Gladion did something she didn't like.”

“Wait, say that again. She made _you_ do housework when _Gladion_ pissed her off?”

“Because she knew it hurt him much more to watch me suffer for something that he thought was his fault.”

Her tone was flat.

“Maybe we can just _leave_ her with the cape guy,” suggested Moon.

Lillie laughed darkly. “If only we could deal with her that easily.”

Guzma took out the door's hinge pins, again in silence; Sophocles unlocked it and Lapin kicked it down; but the man in this room had a quicker reaction time, holding a gun up to face Guzma, whose gun was already out.

“Hmm,” said the man calmly. He had blue hair and an almost blank expression. “It seems we are at an impasse.”

“So it would seem,” drawled Guzma in an accent that was a lazy affectation of Lusamine. “Oh dear, whatever _shall_ we do.”

Moon was standing behind Guzma, and took the opportunity to use him as a visual shield. “I've got something,” she said, under her breath. “Don't move.”

She lobbed Hero's ball, much like a grenade, into the room from behind Guzma. There was a flash of bright light and a resounding crash.

“Well, you took care of knocking him out,” said Guzma, lowering the gun. “Nice one.”

Moon beamed at him. “Thanks! I got the idea in Po Town when I was running for my life from the Foxes.” He merely rolled his eyes in response.

Hero had, through no fault of their own, knocked over a large bookshelf as well as the blue-haired man. There were books everywhere, and they gingerly picked their way back to clear ground.

“Thank you,” said Moon, running one hand over the chrome X on Hero's face. “Did he get you?”

Hero couldn't really shake their head, but it did swivel briefly from side to side.

“Good. Best stalker ever.”

That earned her a clanging laugh, and she recalled her Metagross before looking around.

Guzma's Ariados was already trussing the blue-haired man up; the kahunas and Elite Four members were all sitting on the floor, again gagged and bound. Molayne, Kahili, and Hala seemed to be fine; Acerola and Olivia were both unconscious, laying limply on the floor. Hapu's expression suggested that she was in a great deal of pain and attempting not to show it but Nanu had no such qualms, sitting by himself with shaking limbs and gritted teeth.

“I wish we had some of the Ultra Space med tech,” said Moon wistfully. “Remember when Kohaku tased me on Poni Island and I was fine after a good night's sleep?”

“It would be convenient,” agreed Hapu, but her voice was slightly hoarse. “Thank you, Moon. I did not know if there would be anyone coming to rescue us.”

“Well, I couldn't run the whole League by myself,” said Moon lightly.

Sophocles was weeping— howling, really— into Molayne's jacket; the older man held him tight, tears dripping silently down his cheeks. Hau was hugging Hala, neither of them making noise. Lillie was sitting with Hapu, and Almas had timidly gone over to Nanu after he was untied and was speaking in a quiet voice; that left Kahili to Moon.

“All right?” she asked.

Kahili looked at her for a few moments, expression blank. “Fine,” she said stiffly.

“Who was he?” Moon jerked her thumb at the blue-haired man.

“His name is Cyrus,” she said simply. “He claims to be from a parallel universe, as half of the idiots here seem to be.”

“Cyrus... Cyrus,” mused Moon. “Familiar name, can't quite place it.”

“Team Galactic, Sinnoh,” called Guzma, busy shoving Cyrus's body on top of a high bookshelf. “Something about Giratina and the Shadow Realm.”

“Oh, that guy. Huh.” She'd read about him online, ages ago. Moon eyed the man, trussed up in Ariados silk. “Hey, Guzma, how much do you want to bet he's got Giratina in a Master Ball?”

“No bets, I saw it on his belt.”

“Ah, damn. I'm getting hungry and there's a vending machine in the guest wing, I was gonna make you buy me snacks.”

"Buy your own damn snacks," retorted Guzma. "You have money from your fancy-ass job. I'm fuckin' broke."

Kahili was staring at Guzma, in bewildered distaste, before turning back to Moon. “Do you have an assignment for me?”

Moon considered the older woman. “A couple more questions,” she said, “Do you know if anyone's been fed?”

“Like they would bother feeding prisoners,” said Kahili, in a tone that suggested Moon was stupid.

Moon elected to ignore this. “I think Molayne is probably coming with my group, because Sophocles was legitimately distraught at the idea that he might be hurt. Acerola and Olivia can't do anything right now, and I refuse to ask Hapu and Nanu to do anything at the moment besides recover. Hala seems all right, but—” Moon glanced over at the man in question, lowering her voice. “You know. He's old. I'd rather not ask him to do anything too strenuous.”

Kahili's mouth thinned. “You want me to babysit them.”

“Fuck, no. Except for Acerola they're adults, they can take care of themselves. Hala can stay here and defend everyone, if that's what you mean by babysitting. I want you to check on the kitchens. I don't know if the domestic staff are still taking care of food or if the Rockets are just raiding the pantry, and we're going to need to find out because we've got medical needs galore and there's a hundred and twenty teenagers in the ballroom. If it's guarded, incapacitate and hide the bodies. We've been electrocuting and wrapping up with Ariados webbing— I don't know if you have a Bug-type who can do that.”

Kahili studied her for a few moments, then nodded abruptly. “I'll find some duct tape.”

“Lillie might know where to get some. Hey, Lillie, where would you guys keep duct tape?”

“Wicke's office or the schoolroom,” answered Lillie. “Both on the first floor, in the main front hallway. There should be a large roll of plain gray but there are smaller rolls of other colors—”

“Gray is fine.” Kahili cut her off, turning toward the door. Moon's eyes narrowed at the rudeness, but Lillie simply rolled her eyes and shook her head; _not worth it_.

“Be careful,” she said. “I'd rather not have to rescue you again.”

“You _won't_ ,” snapped Kahili, and promptly marched out the door.

“Arceus fuck,” muttered Moon under her breath, watching her go. “She really does not like me. Goddamn.”

“Full offense,” said Molayne cheerfully, joining her, “but Kahili doesn't like anyone. At least half of that is due to being a celebrity for much longer time than you, and getting cameras shoved in her face everywhere she goes. That's enough to put anyone off the human race at large.”

“And the other half?”

“I honestly couldn't say.” Molayne's eyes twinkled with mischief, but Moon decided that whatever dirt he had on Kahili was not, at this point in time, important enough to warrant a further line of questioning.

“All right,” she said, raising her voice so the whole room could hear; quiet fell as they turned to her. “Here's the plan. Acerola and Olivia are out of commission, and so are Nanu and Hapu.” She cast quelling glares at both of them as they opened their mouths to protest. “Shut up, both of you. You were just tased. I have first-hand experience with that and it is highly unpleasant. I don't want you doing shit that will just fuck up your recovery. So your job is to stay here and rest. Hala, please don't be offended if I ask you to stay and guard them. You're not hurt, but I don't want anyone getting taken hostage because we decided to leave the injured behind by themselves. I've sent Kahili to liberate the kitchens because we're going to need food when everything is over. The trial captains are roaming the hallways to take down patrolling Rockets. Molayne will be joining my group in the, um, primary rescue operations. We've only got three groups left. Almas told us that Lusamine is with a green-haired man with a cape, the Skulls are with a tall, red-headed man, and Wicke is with Van.”

“Van?” Hala frowned.

“The guy in charge,” explained Moon.

“You mean, Giovanni?”

The world screeched to a nauseating halt. “ _What_?”

* * * * *

She and Guzma had spoken at the same time; turning, they made eye contact.

“How come you didn't tell me that Van was _Giovanni_?”

“I didn't fucking know! I've never seen a picture and he never introduced himself as Giovanni or said that Van was a nickname or whatever. We just knew he was Van and he was one of the Foxes, or he was in charge of the Foxes.”

“It was definitely Van,” said Almas quietly. “I saw his face.”

“Then— then they're definitely the same person.”

“What the fuck is up with Po Town, then?” Guzma held up one hand, sighing. “Rhetorical question. We don't get to deal with Po Town until Gladion gets back.”

Moon stiffened, as an idea came to her. “Two Giovannis,” she said clearly.

Guzma turned on her, face incredulous; but she held up one hand the way he had just a moment ago. “Two Giovannis,” she repeated. “All of the guys we've run into so far are from parallel universes— ones where they won, rather than lost. But here, those guys all already existed. They're just in jail. Logically, it follows that there's a Giovanni here, one from a world where he won and everything is a dystopia run by Team Rocket or whatever nightmare you want to dream up. _Our_ Giovanni, the one that had his ass kicked by a couple of teenage boys, is in prison.”

“Two Giovannis is right.”

Nanu's voice was raspy; he sounded more tired and broken than Moon had ever heard him.

“Two is right,” he repeated. “Except ours, as you call him, ain't in jail. He's the one that's here. The parallel universe one is in Po Town.”

“He's _not_ in jail?” repeated Moon, horrified.

“There was a prison break,” said Nanu curtly. “Interpol agents and ex-agents were notified, but they didn't make the announcement public. Didn't want to incite general panic. He's kept pretty quiet and the running theory was that he went to hide out somewhere in the ass end of nowhere in Sinnoh. I wasn't hearing about much in the way of Team Rocket here in Alola for a long time, but there were a couple of rumors floating around and I was going to start looking into it. Didn't really get around to that before, you know, some goon fucked me up with a taser.”

“How do you know which is which?”

“Accents.” Nanu sighed heavily, bringing one hand up to absently rub at the other arm. “Ours sounds more Kantonian. So far as I know, he was in prison in Kanto and didn't do much traveling. If the other guy won, he probably did travel because he sounds like he's lived in a few places. Kanto, sure, but he says a few things that are more Kalos or Unova.”

“How long has he been here?”

“Dunno. The prison break was just over a year ago.”

“Van came in three years ago,” said Guzma quietly.

“So he's been here a while, then.” Nanu shrugged. “After he won in his world, probably. Wonder what they've been doing without him.”

Moon realized that winning, in the alternate Giovanni's universe, probably meant that his Red and Blue were dead. Had her alternate self ever gone to Alola? Or was she dead, too?

“Alumni of Team Rocket my ass,” she said under her breath, before clearing her throat. “Okay, that's good to know. Rescue team, I think we're headed right for Van— Giovanni, I mean. Wicke needs medical attention, rescuing the kids is going to be messy, and nobody gives a shit about Lusamine.”

“I give like, a quarter of one,” Lillie corrected her.

“We give a quarter of a shit about Lusamine,” Moon amended. “Any objections?”

There were none, and their group— now numbering seven, with the addition of Molayne— made their way through the hallways.

She dropped back to talk to him, as they went; Guzma was happy to take the lead, scouting and bossing the rest of them around. But Molayne was another story— not because she was worried that he wouldn't do as she asked, if it came down to it; but because she wanted to see how he was doing.

“I have now realized why you didn't want me to swear around Sophocles,” she informed him.

“Is that so?”

“Because when I was briefly trapped inside a computer server when we beam-me-up-Scotty'ed our way over here, he was producing plenty of inventive invectives all on his own.”

Molayne grinned. “Ah, Moon, you have such a way with words.”

“He told me you taught him most of it.”

“That I did. Programming and swearing go together like peanut butter and jelly. Now, please explain to me what exactly you meant by verbing the phrase ' _beam me up, Scotty_.' I'm a huge fan of _Jirachi Trek_ , but I'm also immensely curious.”

She explained briefly about the technology that she and Arby had developed to materialize beans and other items through Rotom rather than the PC on its own, as well as the hypothesis that it might be possible to send a person through as well— and the positive results of that hypothesis, provided that one tied one's shoes correctly.

“It was probably a good thing I landed in that server, though,” she concluded. “We had a hint about Team Rocket, who are apparently calling themselves—”

“Rainbow Rocket, I know.” Molayne's nose wrinkled. “I believe the idea was for there to be seven leaders, much like there are seven colors in a rainbow.”

“I only counted six.”

His mouth twitched. “They thought Faba might do.”

Moon stared at him. “He'd be indigo,” she said finally. “Not strictly necessary to the rainbow, usually forgotten, and functionally covered by both blue and purple anyway.”

They managed to stave off the giggles for a bit before Molayne let out a single snort and then they were both lost, doubling over in the hallway with hands pressed to their mouths so they wouldn't laugh too loudly.

“Quit goofing off,” hissed Guzma, turning back to glare at them. “This is life or death, not a fucking picnic.”

Moon managed to get herself under control, coming back to the front. “Did we figure out where Wicke is?” she asked.

“Lusamine's lab,” he said curtly. “Isolated, which is good— we can be as loud as we need to be once we take out the goons. I can pump Giovanni full of lead.”

“I mean, one bullet should do it if you hit him in the right spot.”

“Oh, I'm gonna shoot him in the nuts first, let him suffer for a bit, and then in the head. He deserves it.”

Moon reminded herself not to ever make Guzma mad again.

They met Ilima, Lana, and Mallow in the foyer, dragging bodies wrapped in Araquanid silk to one of the nearby fancy parlors that had been thoroughly vandalized by Trinh and her spray paint. They were laid out in neat rows.

“Ran into Kahili a bit ago,” Ilima informed them. “She said you guys had gotten her out. I think Mina and Kiawe went to help her with the kitchens.”

“Awesome.” Moon glanced at Mallow. “Once we get everybody free, everybody's going to be starving. I doubt Team Rocket bothered feeding the Skulls. So if you want to get started with lunch once the kitchen is secure...”

“I can't do dinner for a hundred and fifty all by myself,” said Mallow.

“Once we get the Skulls free, I'll draft some of them to help you. We're getting Wicke out first.”

She offered a thumbs-up.

Rotom beeped alarmingly, flying out of Sophocles' hands. “Lillie, there's something coming up behind you!”

Inky hands and arms flickered into existence, wrapping around Lillie with a glimmer of gold-blue-scarlet behind. Red eyes flashed.

“ _Lillie_!” screamed Hau.

“I thought I heard voices.”

Moon had to assume that this was the green-haired man in the cape, because he did in fact have green hair and a cape. He held a gun, casually pointed at Lillie; the Pokémon that held her cackled nastily.

“Unload your gun,” he said pleasantly to Guzma. “Drop the bullets and the gun on the floor. Kick it over to me.”

Guzma, stone-faced, obeyed.

Suddenly the gun swung around to point directly at Moon.

“Champion,” the man said, voice soft. “Hands off your belt, if you please.”

Moon reluctantly let her hands drop.

“In fact— all of you, put your Pokémon on the ground.”

“Don't,” said Lillie quickly. “He's not going to kill me, he'd lose my value as a hostage.”

“Of course, my dear girl,” said the man. He seemed mildly amused. “But I can and will _hurt_ you. Speaking of which— Cofagrigus, if you please.”

The Pokémon that held Lillie laughed again, before one clawed black finger curled with mesmerizing flexibility around her pinky finger and—

— _snapped_.

* * * * *

Lillie's face twisted in anguish and she sobbed, gasping for air; but she did not scream, and a flicker of dissatisfaction crossed the man's face.

“As I was saying,” he said. “Pokémon. On the floor.”

Obviously Lillie couldn't move, but the Cofagrigus removed her Trainer belt for her, tossing it carelessly onto the ground. Moon, fury pounding in her ears, dropped her teammates on the ground as well. Everyone else followed suit.

“I think I'll take...” He considered, eyes flicking over all of them. “The Champion, the redhead, and the little girl that thinks she's a boy.”

Almas flinched.

“Oh, fuck _all_ the way off,” snarled Sophocles.

“Language,” said the green-haired man, his voice disapproving. “The rest of you, stay here. With multiple hostages, I can easily afford to kill one. I've had Cofagrigus following you at a distance, because of the Rotom, but I was able to ascertain that nobody seems to care about President Mohn as a hostage. I think these four, plus the two professors, will do quite nicely to consolidate my power here.” He took a step backwards; the Cofagrigus and Lillie went with him.

Moon, Sophocles, and Almas followed. It was deadly silent behind them.

“What's your name?” Moon asked the green-haired man, as they were walking down the hallway.

“Ghetsis, my dear girl. I am the king of Unova.”

Moon snorted. “Bullshit. I can't imagine any place _less_ likely to have a king than Unova.”

“Be that as it may, it is who I am.” He seemed unbothered by the jibe; clearly needling him into making a mistake wasn't going to work here.

“So, what legendary Pokémon do you have?” she asked him.

He smiled indulgently at her. Moon felt a chill go down her spine. “Reshiram.”

“So in your world, who has Zekrom?”

He hummed cheerfully. “My right-hand man, Colress.”

“Oh! Yeah, okay. You're the guy who got his ass handed to him by, oh, what's their name. Hilda. Or maybe Hilbert. And also some other guy that they just called N. And then two years later you had your ass handed to you again, by this N guy but also Nate and Rosa and Hugh.”

“Ah,” said Ghetsis, sounding satisfied. “So that is what happened to me in this world. Interesting.”

“And Colress _totally_ betrayed you, by the way.”

He stopped talking. “What?”

 _Bingo_.

“Yep,” said Moon, nodding. “Nate and Rosa talked to him, and he realized— oh, how does it go, Lillie?”

“That Pokémon are more powerful when they choose to work together with their Trainers,” said Lillie faintly. “Instead of being forced to it.”

“Well, I knew _that_ , my dear.”

But Moon had gotten to him, so she ignored his attempt to reassert confidence. “Yeah, anyway he turned you in for a lighter plea deal, did some jail time, and went on to become a famous scientist. I've met him. He's pretty neat.”

Ghetsis's eye— the one that was visible— twitched. Moon smiled innocently at him.

“Apparently he always thought you were completely fucking bonkers and he would have turned you in at some point anyway.” Almas's tone was light; he had cottoned on to what they were doing. As far as Moon knew, Almas hadn't even _met_ Colress before. “He said you weren't stable enough to be a king, or whatever it is you wanted to be.”

“Yeah,” agreed Moon. “He said that even if you'd taken over the world, he probably would have poisoned you in your sleep or had you locked up somewhere, and he would have taken over and been sensible about it.”

“The little rat,” mumbled Ghetsis, his teeth grinding together. “I'll make him pay for thi—”

There was a sudden crackle of noise, and Ghetsis's face went slack; he toppled over. The Cofagrigus snarled, arms briefly tightening around Lillie; but there was a whooshing noise and it was sucked away, into— some kind of tube.

Colress popped into existence, holding a taser; the business end of the prongs were on the back of Ghetsis's neck. He picked a Pokéball from the man's belt, then opened it by the tube. The Cofagrigus went angrily back into the ball, rattling and vibrating furiously in Colress's hand before the man put it back into the belt.

“Nicely done,” he said, looking up at Moon and then over at Lillie, who had stumbled when the Cofagrigus had let her go. “It helps, of course, that the two of you have already had contact with a diagnosed narcissist. If you've seen one narcissist, you've seen them all.”

“I did wonder,” said Moon, looking down at Ghetsis where he twitched on the floor.

“If he was a narcissist?”

“I mostly thought he was just psychotic,” admitted Moon. “But it did seem familiar.”

Colress snorted. “Unfortunately, this Ghetsis succeeded in his endeavors, and was therefore not driven mad by his own failure. My observations lead me to conclude that he is, somehow, far more reasonable than _our_ Ghetsis, who is thankfully rotting in a maximum-security detention center in Unova.”

“Thank you for taking care of both of them.”

“It was my very genuine pleasure.” He raised his voice. “Molayne, I believe you're among the party by the door. I've taken care of Ghetsis.”

Molayne and Hau were first, sprinting down the hallway side by side. Molayne hugged Sophocles so hard he squeaked; Hau was kissing Lillie— perhaps a little indecently for public viewing, but she had just had her pinky finger broken and Ghetsis might have ended up killing any of them so Moon didn't really blame him. Guzma followed at a more sedate pace, but he handed back their Trainer belts before putting one hand on Moon's shoulder and the other on Almas's shoulder. It was oddly comforting.

“I have almost determined a method by which we may return these men to their original worlds,” Colress informed them. “I admit I am hesitant to do so— if they can somehow make use of Ultra Wormhole technology in their own universes, we may well have an influx of villains upon our hands.”

“Should we just kill them?”

“I am also loathe to do that.” Colress's eyes went distant. “I have had too much blood on my hands to be comfortable adding any more.”

“It won't be your hands then,” said Guzma curtly. “I can take care of it.”

Colress simply looked at him.

“What?”

“You do not need to kill anyone,” said Colress steadily. “I know you have killed before, but your hands are still cleaner than mine. You are still a young man, with a rich life ahead of you. Leave it to someone who will not be pained by it.”

Moon looked up at Guzma, wide-eyed; but he let out a soft sigh and merely nodded, shoulders slumping.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“You are quite welcome.”

Ghetsis was tied up and dragged into the schoolroom, bound to all three desks so that he couldn't so much as wiggle. Sophocles locked him inside, and Colress turned to Lillie.

“I believe he had your mother and the two professors as hostages,” he said steadily. “The professors are unconscious. They are all bound and held safely in her bedroom. From my observations of the other leaders, he was not trusted with more than that as he is mentally unstable.”

“Your observations?” queried Moon.

That produced a flickering smile, and Colress reached into his pocket and withdrew a small black remote. “Colress Machine number 317,” he said, and pressed a button; he vanished. “It is made with a robotic nanostructure that imitates the isolated genes for chameleonism and invisibility, from Kecleon and various Ghost-type Pokémon respectively. With sensors attached to every garment I am wearing as well as one on my chest, it removes me from the naked eye. An infrared scope would still pick me up, but I cannot be seen on the visible spectrum.”

“You made yourself an invisibility button.”

Colress reappeared. “That is a rather simplistic way of putting it.”

“But you made yourself an invisibility button.”

He sighed. “Yes, I made myself an invisibility button.”

“ _Sweet_. So you went and spied on everybody?”

“I thought it unwise to carry out an experiment without forming a hypothesis prior, and I thought it similarly unwise to form a hypothesis without complete data.”

“So what has your data told you?”

As it turned out, quite a lot.

Giovanni was, in fact, “their” Giovanni. The parallel universe Giovanni, the actual leader of the Foxes who went by the name of Van, had been here earlier; but had already left— teleported by a Mewtwo, who had since returned.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” mumbled Moon under her breath.

“Quite,” agreed Colress.

Ghetsis was a megalomaniac, and so was trusted with nothing essential. Each of the leaders had a color assignment, as the theme of the team was Rainbow Rocket. Ghetsis's color was green. Evidently Faba had sulked over this because _he_ wanted to be green, but he was, in fact, indigo. Moon and Molayne spent several minutes laughing about this. Giovanni was purple, Maxie was red, Archie was blue, Cyrus was yellow, and the final man, a Kalosian named Lysandre, was orange. Van was “ultraviolet,” which Colress disgustedly informed them was not on the visible light spectrum and therefore _shouldn't_ count.

Cyrus was given the responsibility of the elite four and kahunas, but he could have been switched out with Maxie; they had more or less the same level of importance to Giovanni. Lysandre seemed to be held in higher regard, with Archie and Faba only given slightly more importance than Ghetsis. Colress added, his tone smug, that everyone seemed to find Faba just as annoying as they did; and that he had heard Lysandre say, under his breath, “Who _actually_ thinks indigo is a proper color of the rainbow anyway?”

“Now, I hate to disappoint you all,” concluded Colress, “but you're going to have to take out Lysandre before you can get to Giovanni. If it were just a matter of electronics, you could easily hack your way in; but there's been an actual physical lock put on the elevator that goes down to the lab. The only people who can enter or exit the lab freely are Giovanni and Lysandre, as they have keys. Giovanni is by now aware that his lieutenants are being taken out, and thus will not leave the lab until he is forced. Thus your only way in is Lysandre.”

“Great,” sighed Moon. “He's got a bunch of gunmen, doesn't he?”

“There are twenty pairs stationed around the room, keeping an eye on the Skulls. Plumeria has been kept isolated from the remainder, as have three of the Skulls.”

“What are their hair colors?”

“Orange, teal, and neon purple.”

“Molly, Rogelio, and Raquel,” said Guzma. He sighed. “They'll have been acting on information that one of the idiots who never left Po Town gave them. Plumeria's my second, though she's a hell of a lot more competent than I am. Raquel's like our secretary, and Molly and Rogelio are...” He trailed off, frowning.

“They have more authority because they're nice to everyone,” offered Almas. “Older sister and older brother types. Plus Molly takes care of stuff like chore rotations and grocery shopping.”

Guzma inclined his head toward Almas. “Yeah, that. So they've separated out the leaders from the other kids.” He sighed. “Fucking pricks.”

“I can go in and out of the room without being seen,” said Colress serenely. “What other assets do we have?”

“I have a gun with six bullets in it,” said Guzma, indicating the gun he had tucked into his waistband.

“I'm skinny enough to get into the air-conditioning vents,” offered Almas.

“I can hack doors, windows, and other electronics,” said Sophocles, holding up Rotom.

Colress glanced at Moon.

“I've got no idea what I bring to the table,” said Moon, shrugging.

“Generally speaking, that's an asset. Hau?”

“I got nothing. Lillie knows the house though.” His arm went a little tighter around Lillie's waist and she smiled; Moon had a sudden ache of missing Gladion, which she tried to quell immediately because they were busy, damn it.

“And you?” Colress said, looking at Molayne.

He batted his eyes. “I'm just a pretty face.”

Colress blinked at him for a few moments. “Useful,” he said flatly.

“He's also annoying as fuck on purpose,” added Sophocles.

“The betrayal,” gasped Molayne, though he was grinning as he melodramatically pressed one hand to his chest. “I raise you with my own two hands, and this is the thanks I get.”

“I literally have parents. You raised fuck all.”

As everyone was laughing, Moon looked at Colress. “Do we have a microphone?” she asked him.

“I'm sure one can be obtained.”

“And can we connect to the big speakers wirelessly?”

“I'm pretty sure they're Bluetooth compatible,” said Almas. “Jer used them for the New Years party, and I think he was using Bluetooth instead of wires.”

“Excellent,” said Moon. She was still watching Molayne having the time of his life, with Sophocles rolling his eyes. “I... _think_ I've got an idea. Have any of you ever seen the movie _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_?”

* * * * *

The mansion ballroom was two stories high, with an expensive Swarovski-crystal chandelier (now ruined by various colors of neon spray paint) hanging from the center of the ceiling. A slender second-floor balcony encircled the entire hall, for people to look down at whatever activity was going on in the center of the room. Moon, lying on the balcony floor with her nose against the railing, could see the Team Skull kids huddled directly below the chandelier. They had arranged themselves with younger or particularly delicate Skulls closer to the center, and older Skulls along the outside.

She was at the end of the room furthest from the door, carefully shuffling at a crouch or simply crawling near the wall; Lillie, with a newly splinted finger, was with her, and they were getting a good look at Lysandre and attempting to find Plumeria, Molly, Rogelio, and Raquel.

Lysandre was handsome, in an arrogant sort of way. He paced in slow circles around the Skulls. Plumeria was sitting on the floor, expression somewhere between angry and bored; her hands were tied together and there were two guards behind her, both with guns trained. Molly, Rogelio, and Raquel were in similar scenarios. Molly had something dark on the lower half of her face, as well as a similarly dark stain on her bright-yellow shirt: dried blood, from a nosebleed or possibly a broken nose. Rogelio's face was buried in his arms, knees drawn up to his chest. Raquel had a black eye, and a cut lip; she glared out at the entire room, eyes fixing hatefully on each Rocket guard for thirty long seconds before she moved on to the next.

“He reminds me of a Pyroar,” said Lillie quietly.

Moon considered Lysandre. “Is it the hair, or the attitude?”

“Both.”

There was not much more to be seen from this angle, but Moon had a line of Araquanid silk, donated by Lana and so thin as to be practically invisible. One end was fastened to a hand-operated crank; at the other was a fish hook.

“I cannot believe,” said Lillie quietly, “that we are basing our rescue plan around a musical theatre production.”

“Seeing is believing. Let Char and Umber out now?”

The Ribombee flew the fish hook with the Araquanid silk up to the very top hook, the strongest one that kept the chandelier screwed into the ceiling. If anybody looked up, they would see nothing; with his Illusion ability, Umber kept Char well-hidden from potential observation.

It was also Char's task— a far more dangerous one, to alert the Skulls to the presence of a rescue party without attracting the attention of the guards. To this end, Moon had prepared something of an impromptu karaoke session by way of distraction. Lillie handed Char a note that Moon had prepared, which could go around the circle of Skulls; but they had no way of communicating with Plumeria, Molly, Rogelio, or Raquel and this was another reason why the karaoke was necessary.

Across the room, in one of the balcony doorways, Hau was laying down flat on the ground, watching them work. Lillie looked at Umber, who nodded; she made a thumbs-up at Hau, who grinned and shuffled backward out of the balcony, silently closing the door.

About thirty seconds later, the speakers crackled to life. The guards stirred, looking around; so did the Skulls. Lysandre paused in his pacing.

Before they had entered the balconies, Moon had gathered everyone on their side. All of the guard patrols had been taken out at this point, and they'd been careful not to disturb Lysandre into sending anyone out to check anything; though, as Colress pointed out, he was probably in contact with Van and knew to expect a rescue attempt. She had then inquired who, if anyone among them, could sing.

The answers were initially not promising. Hala had a rich, booming bass, but he wasn't quite the right sound for what Moon had in mind. Acerola was a soprano; but that was also not really what she wanted.

But then _Guzma_ , of all people, had sighed.

“I told the Skulls they would take this to the grave,” he muttered, casting a distinctly fishy eye at Almas, who held up his hands in an expression of innocence. “But I guess everyone gets to know now. I sing, a little. Prefer the guitar, but I can carry a tune.”

And so it was Guzma's voice that came from the speakers, along with a gentle backing soundtrack that Sophocles had found on the internet.

_A gentle breeze from Hushabye Mountain  
Softly blows over Lullaby Bay  
It fills the sails of boats that are waiting  
Waiting, to sail your worries away _

Guzma's speaking voice was slightly rough and tended toward half-formed words and slurred syllables; but when he sang, it was a soft baritone that oddly matched his speaking voice. One could tell it was Guzma because it sounded like him.

“They must be nearby,” shouted Lysandre, though he didn't really need to shout to be heard; the music wasn't that loud. He had a nice voice too, noted Moon— probably what Almas had meant by _charming, but in an evil way_. “You four, look for an audio-visual control room.”

He was smart, Moon would give him that; Guzma was indeed in the audio/visual control room, barricaded in with Molayne and Sophocles— really, properly barricaded. Sophocles had written a purposeful virus into the door-locking mechanism for that room and the only way it would open now was if someone smashed it open with a sledgehammer. A sledgehammer wasn't beyond the Rockets, but even if they did get in they had an Elite Four member, a trial captain, and a very experienced Trainer to contend with. There were also bulletproof vests, taken from Rockets they'd already knocked out; and Molayne had taken delight in having his teammates build a small barricade with the spare desks, shelves, and chairs in the room. They also had plenty of snacks and some water bottles, plus a bucket for waste that would hopefully be unnecessary. If the rescue took long enough for them to use the bucket, they were probably all screwed anyway.

_It isn't far to Hushabye Mountain_

_And your boat waits down by the key_

_The winds of night, so softly are sighing_

_Soon they will fly your troubles to sea_

“Okay, Char, go,” whispered Lillie.

As Lysandre and the Rockets were distracted, it was a simple matter for Char, clutching a note for the Skulls and the hook at the end of the fishing line, to flit downwards with both. Umber had to concentrate to keep her invisible, but he was doing well. Their target was, at Almas's suggestion, Ki-moon— he would be able to keep calm and hang onto the hook while passing the message around. His hair wasn't dyed— one of the few Skulls who hung onto his natural hair color— and he was fairly easy to pick out of the rainbowy crowd. He was close to the front of the group, with Jeremiah's dirty-blonde leaning on his shoulder.

Moon and Lillie waited for Char to fly back up. It took about forty-five seconds, but then she came up quickly, going straight up and then flying around the balcony to return to Lillie.

“You got it?”

“Beebee,” confirmed Char, voice soft.

_So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain_

_Wave good-bye to the cares of the day_

_And watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain_

_Sail far away from Lullaby Bay_

With the note delivered, Moon could concentrate on the reactions from the Skulls. Plumeria's eyes were wide, and she sat up straight for the first time since Moon had first seen her. Molly's mouth had fallen open slightly— Moon knew she would get the references, because they'd talked about _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_ before. Rogelio's eyes, bruised around a pale face, looked up with a frown; and while Raquel had not stopped death-glaring the guards, she was now offering a nasty smile with it.

A few of the kids in the center were turning around, looking up and around; a quick shake of the head from Ki-moon, however, was enough to stop them.

_So watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain_

_Sail far away from Lullabye Bay_

_Sail far away from Lullabye Bay_

“What is going on here?”

Lysandre didn't need to speak loudly, not with his rumbling voice and the cessation of the music. He was looking at Plumeria, disapproval written on his face.

“I have no idea,” she said evenly. “I'm pretty sure that's my boyfriend singing, though how anyone talked him into it I also have no idea. He doesn't sing for very many people.”

“What does the song mean?”

Molly waved one hand, saying with a completely straight face. “It's from a musical.”

Lysandre rolled his eyes. “ _Theatre_. Arceus preserve me,” he muttered. “Which musical?”

“ _Fiddler on the Roof_ ,” said Molly, with a completely straight face.

Moon and Lillie both choked down laughter.

Lysandre squinted at her. “Is that so?”

“Mm-hmm.”

There was a long pause; then Lysandre turned to another pair of guards. “Roof access is on the third floor in the central open foyer. It should be relatively easy to find. Check for anyone hiding up there.”

“We owe Molly our lives,” said Moon under her breath.

Lillie nodded. “Agreed.”

They sat back and waited. Almas and Colress were carrying out a different aspect of the plan, while Hala and Kahili were lying in wait to incapacitate any goons that Lysandre sent out of the room. So far six were gone, leaving fourteen plus Lysandre. Moon guessed that after ten were gone with no sign of their return, he would start to get suspicious; and it was then that the Skulls were to make their move.

The note that Char had sent down to Ki-moon read the following:

_Rest easy, kids. “You Two” (give or take a hundred and twenty) will get out of_

_here just fine. Your “Lovely Lovely Man” will sing “Hushabye Mountain”, and the_

“ _Posh!” lion will panic. We're waiting for a “Truly Scrumptious” opportunity. Right_

_now you're all like a “Doll on a Music Box,” but if you can manage to hook the_

_lion once he's mad, we'd count that as “The Roses of Success”, and we'll take him_

_out with a “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. If you could maybe snag the key in his_

_pocket, that would also be “Toot Sweets”. See you on the other side!_

(“I cannot believe,” said Almas, staring at Moon with a despairing expression, “that you wrote that with a completely straight face.”

“Hey, I like the musical, okay? It's cheesy as hell but it's cute. Leave me alone.”)

Even if Ki-moon didn't manage to hook Lysandre, the plan would work— Moon had made sure of that, not wanting to place undue pressure on the Skulls or put them in danger. But it would be better— not to mention absolutely fucking hilarious— if he could.

She watched Ki-moon, whose eyes were tracking Lysandre. An unobservant party might have assumed he was staring at the man's ass, but she knew he was simply looking for an opportunity.

Ki-moon's hand went to his belt, and Moon smiled. There was another reason she'd picked him over anyone else. He waited until Lysandre had just passed him, then casually let a small Pokémon out of its ball.

Plumeria, Molly, and Rogelio were all watching Ki-moon, curious; Raquel was still smiling nastily at every guard in the room in turn. Many of them were unsettled by her stare, looking at her warily and thus forgetting to keep an eye on the Skulls. It meant that when Lysandre made another sweep, passing the front of the room, Ki-moon could quickly bring his hand up, with something small and silver and something small and green, and blow softly in the man's direction.

Moon had been sure to leave some slack in the line, not entirely sure when she would be able to start reeling him in; but then the balcony door across from Moon cracked open and Hau's face appeared. He gave a thumbs-up sign: Almas and Colress were finished.

Lillie returned the sign, and they settled in to wait.

The speakers crackled again, and Guzma— somehow sounding much more disgruntled this time, began singing again.

_Every bursted bubble has a glory,_

_Each abysmal failure makes a point,_

_Every glowing path that goes astray_

_Shows you how to find a better way._

_So every time you stumble, never grumble_

_Next time, you'll bumble even less_

_For up from the ashes_

_Up from the ashes_

_Grow the roses of success_

By now the Skulls were all giggling.

“Quiet!” snapped Lysandre.

“Sorry, sir,” said Plumeria, grinning and not sounding at all apologetic. “You have to understand— it's my boyfriend. Usually he wouldn't be caught dead singing anything from musical theater. He's more of a hip-hop and rap sort.”

Lysandre's nose wrinkled. “Plebians, all of you,” he said under his breath. “That garbage isn't even _music_ , it's just noise.”

“Rude,” said Molly, glaring at him. “What music do _you_ even listen to, anyway?”

_Grow the roses_

_Grow the roses_

_Grow the roses of success_

_Oh, yes!_

_Grow the roses_

_Those rosy roses_

_From the ashes of disaster_

_Grow the roses of success_

“Is there a rose garden on this island?” inquired Lysandre, turning to look at Rogelio.

“There is, sir,” he said, just loudly enough for Moon and Lillie to hear him.

“Where?”

“Out in the gardens in the front.”

Unluckily for the outdoors goons, all of the trial captains except for Mallow and Sophocles had gone out to clear the area. Anyone that Lysandre sent outside would be quickly incapacitated... assuming they ever made it outside in the first place.

“You four,” ordered Lysandre, pointing. “Check the rose gardens.”

The problem with Lysandre, as far as Moon remembered from reading up on the whole Kalos incident, was that regardless of what world he was in, he was less prone to action than he was to thinking, and seemed to accept other people doing things for him. Sending goons out instead of going himself was a mistake; and so was looking too deeply into the songs that Guzma was being forced to sing.

It helped that Molly had deliberately mislead him about the title of the musical, too. _Fiddler on the Roof_ had been an _excellent_ , if unexpected, red herring.

_For every big mistake you make, be grateful... hear, hear!_

_That mistake you'll never make again... no, sir!_

_Every shiny dream that fades and dies_

_Generates the steam for two more tries_

_Oh! There's magic in the wake of a fiasco... Correct!_

_It gives you the chance to second-guess... Oh, yes!_

_When up from the ashes_

_Up from the ashes_

_Grow the roses of success_

The four guards made a valiant attempt to walk towards the door, but were promptly yanked into the air by their ankles, dangling upside down in mid-air from seemingly nothing.

“What the _hell_!” shouted Lysandre, whirling on the Skulls. “Explain yourselves!”

“We haven't done anything,” said Cassie, her voice loud but lazy; Lysandre's fury centered on her as she spoke and Moon realized it was a deliberate choice. “We're just sitting here, planning on how we're going to make fun of the boss next time we see him.”

That produced a wave of bolder giggles from the Skulls. Moon saw a flash of green, flitting back to Ki-moon; it landed in his lap and he quietly stowed it away.

_Disaster didn't stymie Louis Pasteur... no, sir!_

_Edison took years to see the light... right!_

_Alexander Graham knew failure well_

_He took a lot of knocks to ring that bell_

_So when it gets distressing, it's a blessing_

_Onward and upward you must press... yes, yes!_

_'Til up from the ashes_

_Up from the ashes_

_Grow the roses of success_

“Do you think I'm an idiot?” roared Lysandre, whirling on Plumeria. “He's your bloody boyfriend, you know him! What is he planning!”

“Believe it or not,” said Plumeria, struggling to keep a straight face, “I don't think he's the mastermind behind this plan. This _screams_ Moon Hawkins.”

Molly's eyes and Rogelio's flicked to Ki-moon at once. Moon could only see the back of his head, but whatever he did caused them both to smile, eyes crinkling and narrowing in anticipation.

_Grow the roses_

_Grow the roses_

_Grow the roses of success, oh yes!_

_Grow the roses_

_Those rosy roses_

_From the ashes of disaster_

_Grow the roses of success!_

_Start the engine... success!_

_Batten the hatches... success!_

_Man the shrouds, lift the anchor... success!_

On the words “from the ashes of disaster,” in the final chorus, all of the other Rockets flew into the air by their ankles, dropping their guns and screeching and flailing. Moon grinned, and waited.

“Moon Hawkins!” shouted Lysandre, turning to glare at the room around them. “Come out and face me as an equal!”

It was unexpected, Moon supposed, but she wasn't _opposed_ to it, per se. The Skulls, realizing that the guards were gone, were scooting away from Lysandre as fast as they could. He was between them and Plumeria, Molly, Rogelio, and Raquel, which was unfortunate.

“Moon, stick to the plan,” warned Lillie.

“Oh, I will.”

On “lift the anchor,” Moon began reeling Lysandre in.

The fish hook caught. Ki-moon had had his tiny Cottonee float over and snag the hook through Lysander's sturdy belt.

“ _AAAARGH_!”

She kept him suspended about ten feet above the ground. Molly and Rogelio were both crying with laughter.

“Do we have any spare Araquanid line?”

Lillie sighed. “Dr. Colress predicted your penchant for theatrics,” she muttered, and pulled another loop of silk from her pocket.

“Remind me to tell Colress I appreciate him,” said Moon, tying one end of the silk in a secure bowline around a balcony railing. She hung on with both hands, climbing onto the railing in question, and rappelled down to the first floor the way she'd learned on her long trip up Mount Lanakila.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Lysandre!” she said cheerfully, once she was on the ground. He slowly spun in place, turning to glare at her with hatred in his eyes. “As requested, I have come to face you as an equal. However, I'd like all the kids to clear out first. Especially any of you who like or are good at cooking. Mallow's been trying to get lunch for you lot together, but there's a lot of you and one of her so she could use some help.”

At the mention of food there was a mass exodus, at least seventy-five teenagers jumping to their feet and sprinting to the door.

“And I assume the rest of you need bathroom breaks, or naps, or medicine that you may have been denied in what is most definitely a violation of your human rights,” added Moon, staring at Lysandre with as disapproving an expression as she could muster. “Seriously, man. A hundred and twenty kids, and you don't feed them or let them pee all day? That's fucked up.”

“Their needs were hardly important,” said Lysandre, rolling his eyes.

Plumeria's eyes narrowed. “Are you going to kill him?” she called. “Because if so, I want dibs.”

“I'm not sure if we're killing anyone yet. Colress said he's trying to put something together to maybe wormhole them back to their own worlds, but he also doesn't want them going home with any knowledge about how to duplicate wormholes.”

“Unfortunately for you,” said Lysandre, his hand going to his belt, “I will not be going home.”

Moon dodged just in time. The Pokémon he had thrown grew, and grew, and grew—

“Oh, god,” she said, nausea rising as the wings— or were they claws?— spread and curled, cracking into the tile of the ballroom floor. Bright blue eyes regarded her malevolently, and it opened its maw to—

— _shriek_ —

—before rearing up on hind legs to spread its glowing red wings.

Unfortunately, the Rockets were the first ones in radius of his wings, and Moon watched, horrified, as all of them shriveled up into mere skeletons in seconds.

Yveltal shrieked again, a ringing cry that echoed through the room; the wings seemed to grow brighter than before.

* * * * *

Lysandre laughed, a terrible sound. “You will _die_ ,” he hissed, sounding pleased. “You predictably came to rescue the children, and it will be your own undoing.”

She didn't have the ability to deal with this. She just _didn't_.

But...

... but she would be damned if she didn't die trying.

Moon stared at the hideous, angry god before putting one hand on her belt, selecting Ben. Rotom was with Sophocles but she was almost certain that Yveltal was a Flying-type—

_Your willingness does you credit, Champion, but there is no need._

With a crash like thunder the ceiling shattered, and three bolts of light and a shadow leaped down as the chandelier hung for a moment, suspended, then came to a shivering, tinkling crash. Lysandre was somewhere in that mess and she could hear him screaming but she wasn't going to think about that, she _wasn't_ , not when Plumeria had grabbed the remaining Skulls, shoving them in terror out of the ballroom doors. Ben chirped questioningly at her from the crackled ground.

“You know,” she said, in response, “I don't really know why I didn't think of that.”

“Moon, get out of there!” shouted Lillie, from the second floor.

 _Hi, Lillie!_ sang Nebby, whirling around Yveltal in a cheerful streak of gold-black-galaxy-blue.

 _Stop getting distracted, Luna_ , scolded Solgaleo. _You may speak with her later, when we have subdued the Life-Eater._

 _You will never win_.

Yveltal's voice was thin and whispery, and sent hairs down Moon's spine— wet silk scraping over a chalkboard, a needling shriek.

 _I have learned_ , said a softer voice, as something grey and copper and teal bloomed, a madness of shadows, from Yveltal's head, _that this Champion always wins. Not always on her own, but that is what we are here for. Friends help one another._

A dark fog engulfed Yveltal's entire head. It thrashed and crashed around the room, but the fog stayed with it, and Moon could not hear it screaming or crying and was, oddly, grateful. One of its wings lashed out— not with any discernable power, or she would have been dead in an instant— and smashed a pillar.

She decided it was time to leave, and made her way around the edges of the room.

 _This is beyond your jurisdiction, so do not think it a failure on your part_ , Necrozma called after her, a golden blaze. _There is only meant to be one life-eater in our universe. Ours is dormant, balanced by the life-bringer, and both remain in thrall with the mountain lord. The man was foolish to bring his life-eater here. We will not allow it to remain._

Moon supposed this was comforting. If the life-eater was Yveltal, then logically the life-bringer was Xerneas. She wasn't sure about the “mountain lord,” but she suspected that Zygarde would fit.

Most of the Skulls were standing outside, panting for breath and, in many cases, crying. Plumeria looked shaken.

“I didn't know,” she breathed. “I didn't fucking know he had that monster with him, shit.”

“It's fine,” said Moon, suddenly tired. “Solgaleo, Lunala, Necrozma, and Marshadow are taking care of it.”

There was a blast of light from inside the room, and a death keen before silence fell.

“Have taken care of it, I should say,” Moon amended herself. She looked at Plumeria, who had gone white. “Guzma has barricaded himself in the audio-visual room with Molayne and Sophocles. They are unable to get out without someone sledgehammering the door open from the outside. I'm not entirely sure where one would find a sledgehammer around here, but I imagine you'd like to find him as soon as possible.”

Plumeria stared at her for a few moments, then took several steps forward and wrapped her arms around Moon. Moon, surprised, slowly hugged her back.

“ _Thank you_ ,” breathed Plumeria. “Thank you, thank you— th-thank you.”

The ballroom doors opened. Several of the Skulls shrieked, shooting backwards in fear, but Solgaleo merely looked bored. _The intruder is still alive, though not for very much longer_ , he informed Moon. _Have you anything to say to him, or shall you let him die as he is?_

As far as she knew, their Lysandre had been killed in the Kalos Incident— the entire underground facility had been destroyed when five brilliant young Trainers had turned the weapon back on itself, only barely escaping with their own lives. “I'll talk to him.”

The ballroom was a mess. Nebby and Lillie were up on the second floor, sitting on a half-destroyed balcony and talking quietly. Necrozma, glowing brilliant gold, sat with fluffy grey Marshadow on her shoulder. Yveltal's corpse was, unnervingly, melting into dust; he left quite a lot of it and it was through this and shattered gold and Swarovski crystals that Solgaleo daintily led her, to a twisted mass of metal and flesh from which Lysandre's head emerged.

“Oh, god,” said Moon faintly, fighting the urge to vomit at the sight.

“Come to gloat, Champion?” Lysandre coughed weakly, spattering blood and glaring up at her.

“Hell, no. Do you know what happened to you in this universe?”

“I do.”

Moon considered him for a few moments. “Good,” she said, nodding. “I'll leave you with that comforting thought.”

“Wait.”

She paused.

“The key to the lab,” he said simply. “It is in my pocket. It may be there still, if you are willing to brave the dust and blood.”

“Oh no, we have the key already,” explained Moon. “My friend Ki-moon, he had his Cottonee hook you with your belt loop, but it also picked your pocket. I just have to find him and grab it.”

“Then you have indeed thought of everything,” murmured Lysandre. He regarded her with cold blue eyes. “You have the strength to protect those you love. I had thought, once, that I saw that in another young woman... but in the end, she failed. As they all did.”

“What was your world like, post nuclear devastation?” The question came naturally, but her voice trembled as she spoke. Yveltal's dust and death were horrible, even though it had hardly gotten an opportunity to destroy anything. It was sick, that Lysandre would call upon a being like that just to maintain his own power. “Somehow, I don't think it was as _beautiful_ as you thought it would be. Otherwise, would you have come here at all?”

His mouth tightened, and Moon knew she had hit a nerve.

"Does it comfort you, that you are right?" he hissed, his voice crackling and gurgling; a thin stream of blood bubbled up and ran from his mouth down toward the debris. "Is it a victory, to you? That in your intelligence and strategy, you have somehow made all of this... _worth_ it?"

Moon felt her mouth go dry. "Yes," she lied.

Lysandre gazed on her for a few more moments; but then the life faded from his eyes.

She was shaking by the time she left the room. Plumeria had vanished, probably looking for a sledgehammer; but Jeremiah, Ki-moon, and Almas— reunited at last— were waiting for her; she forced herself to smile at them, walking forward. Ki-moon smiled back, offering her the key that would open the way to rescuing Wicke.

“Here you are,” he said softly, holding out his hand. Moon took the key. “How did you think of— all that?”

“I've learned not to question my dumbass brain and its dumbass ideas,” she informed him. “Sometimes it really is just me being a dumbass, but would anyone really think to prevent a hostile takeover by defending yourself against musical theatre?”

“Nah,” said Almas, grinning. “That's pure Moon dumbassery.”

“Watch it, kid,” said Moon, without venom. “I'm going to rescue Wicke, but I've gotta go find Lillie first. She's probably talking with Nebby somewhere.”

“I'm coming,” insisted Almas.

“I thought you would, or I wouldn't have mentioned it."

"I'm not," said Jeremiah darkly. "You're going down to the basement, right?"

"Yeah."

"I've been down there, helping the aliens clean it out. Once was enough, thanks."

"I will also pass," said Ki-moon. "Some of the younger Skulls probably need comforting."

"Does it ever occur to you that you _are_ some of the younger Skulls?" inquired Hau. "Most of you are right around eighteen."

"There's young," said Ki-moon, regarding him, "and then there's _young_. Come on, Jer."

Hau squinted after them as they walked away. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

"Sometimes the response to heavy emotional trauma is increased maturity," said Almas, his tone a little too bright. "And sometimes, it's the exact opposite. Let's go."

Moon nodded. " I wonder if Nebby will come with us, too.”

Sadly Nebby could not— their only business as Alolan deities, she said regretfully, was to remove Yveltal from the equation— but she wished them luck.

 _I am not Alolan_ , Marshadow reminded them, with a sly smile. _I am permitted to go where I will. So I think I will come with you_.

“This is why you're my favorite,” said Moon under her breath.

Nebby, Solgaleo, and Necrozma left, light flashing high into the sky as they vanished through the ballroom ceiling. Moon had to collect Hau from where he was hanging out with a bunch of the Skulls, and then Molly (with her nose splinted and bandaged) and Rogelio insisted on accompanying them as well. Then they were just waiting on Sophocles along with Rotom, once the door of the audio-visual room had been smashed open. Moon thought of Gladion, missing him again with a soft ache; but there were seven of them plus Marshadow and that would be enough.

Lusamine was sitting on the floor of her room; the Professors were lying in the bed, unconscious. Lillie stiffened at the sight of her mother, but quickly regained her composure, pretending to ignore her.

Moon didn't have the same luxury. “Hey, Rogelio, do you have a pocket-knife?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She cut Lusamine's bonds open, then did the same for the Professors. “If you know what's good for you,” she said, leveling Lillie's mother with a hard stare, “you'll stay right here until we come back. You can go to the door and ask anyone who passes by to bring you some food, but you will not leave this room unless you want to suffer the consequences.”

Lusamine's glare was vicious, but Moon was stubborn, had learned to be as tenacious as a Granbull over the length of her Pokémon journey. She stared at Lusamine until the older woman looked away.

“Fine,” she said, in a quiet voice. “Faba and Giovanni are down there. He has Mewtwo.”

“We should be okay, but the warning is appreciated. Thank you,” said Moon, and turned to stick the key into the elevator.

“P-please— be careful.”

She was staring at Lillie, green eyes burning; but her daughter ignored her, teeth gritted.

The elevator door closed on all seven of them, and Moon turned the key again before pressing the button that would take them to the secret laboratory. “How did they do this in one day?” she wondered. “This would take ages to set up.”

“I bet Faba did it beforehand,” suggested Molly, looking guilty. “He'd been in and out of the house a few times— said he had an office here, and I didn't think to question that.”

“He did,” said Lillie, a little stiffly, “ but that was a good cover, so don't blame yourself for not catching on.”

The elevator descended. Moon pressed the _close doors_ button. “Everyone has one Pokémon out,” she said decisively. “Mewtwo hates humans, but if he sees that all of you have a Pokémon to protect you, he might decide you're okay. If he's fully controlled by Giovanni like I think he is then it won't matter, but better safe than sorry.”

There wasn't much room in the elevator, but they managed to squeeze everyone together. Hau brought out Uila, and Lillie had Umber; both were solid choices to face down Mewtwo. Sophocles had Togedemaru, perched on his shoulder. Molly had an Alolan Golem with its magnetic moustache; Rogelio, his Shiinotic. Almas withdrew Mudbray, gathering it up in his arms.

“Ready?” said Moon, with one hand on Hero's ball.

“Ready,” confirmed Hau. There were nods all around.

She pressed the open doors button and, as soon as a Pokéball could fit through, tossed Hero out. Marshadow went undercover, slipping around to lurk in shadows.

“ _You_!” screeched Faba.

Moon ignored him, instead studying Giovanni.

“How's the evil twin life treating you?” she inquired.

Giovanni stood, leaning on a desk that had been brought down into the room; a shape that was surely Wicke laid on a cot in the corner. Mewtwo hovered next to Giovanni with folded arms, an expression of disdain on his face that grew along with the number of humans in the room. Faba stomped forward, but Moon had neither the time nor the patience to deal with him, and tossed out Macbeth.

Faba fumbled for his own Pokémon; but not before Macbeth, at a signal from Moon, picked him up and hurled him— quite gently, all things considered— at the wall. He hit with a resounding smack, the air whooshing from his lungs.

“Is it odd that I found that as satisfying as you undoubtedly did?”

Giovanni spoke in pure Kantonian, which meant that only Moon could understand him; perhaps Wicke, if she were still awake.

“Common, if you please,” she said, keeping her tone pleasant. “I know you know it. Red mentioned as much.”

His eyes narrowed when she mentioned his longtime enemy. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said, in Common this time, “but I will if I have to.”

“The beauty of it is, you don't actually have to,” said Moon, still pleasant. “No matter what you believe your choices are, you're still making the choice to hurt children. To hurt Pokémon. And for what, exactly? Your own selfish gain.” She shook her head. “Pathetic.”

The Mewtwo didn't belong to this world's Giovanni. Moon knew this, because this world's Mewtwo was hiding out in a cave somewhere in Kanto, the location of which was carefully safeguarded by Red. That meant that this Mewtwo was Van's, and that he probably had jurisdiction to act however he chose as long as Van wasn't here. That meant that they had to be very, _very_ careful.

“I must assume,” said Giovanni finally, “that you have at the very least defeated Lysandre.”

“Oh, he's dead,” said Moon, blinking at him. “It wasn't intentional, but if you _will_ summon your nineteen-foot life-eating legendary Pokémon in the middle of a ballroom, you must expect that the realm's Champion is going to call down the realm's two gods plus two independent universal deities to take care of it.”

“ _What_?” demanded Faba, finally regaining the air to struggle to his feet.

“Perks of being a Champion,” added Moon airily. “I can just ask Solgaleo and Lunala to do things, really nicely, and they'll usually comply. Most people wouldn't have that level of influence over Necrozma or Marshadow, but the thing is— when you respect the gods, they respect you back.” She was still staring at Giovanni. “Something I imagine you never learned, given what you did to Mew.”

Mewtwo's eyes narrowed. It was dangerous territory upon which Moon trod, but if she could get Mewtwo to turn on him, they could take care of things quickly.

“Mew is hardly a god,” said Giovanni, though Moon noted that he too cast a nervous glance at Mewtwo. “She is a spirit of nature— an immensely powerful one, but a spirit all the same. The only god is Arceus.”

“All legendary Pokémon are gods, in a manner of speaking. They have differing levels of power, but they're still gods. For instance, I don't think that Keldeo has as much power as Arceus. But it still has great power. _The impartial justice of a rushing river_ , I once heard it called.”

Giovanni squinted at her.

“Just as Mewtwo has great power.” Moon looked at Mewtwo, making brief eye contact and nodding once. “Of course, in your design of Mewtwo, you meant to unlock every power available to the gods. You meant to make a Mew with the power of Arceus. Only Arceus himself would be able to tell if you succeeded, of course, but that would have been kind of terrible for you considering the level of blasphemy you committed. And the likelihood of Arceus just popping in to visit and check up was unlikely enough that you decided you could get away with bragging about it.”

Most of what she was saying was modified from the things that Red had told her much later on, or from the personal research she'd done on Giovanni on her lonesome in the early days when Red did Not Want To Talk About It. She was twisting his words just enough, hoping to bait Giovanni into saying something stupid.

“Pokémon are meant to serve mankind, not the other way arou—”

Giovanni exploded.

Literally exploded. Chunks of flesh and spatters of blood landed on Hero and Moon, in the lead of their party; the others gasped in horror, Faba, unfortunately close, got quite a lot on himself and began screaming. Mewtwo shot him a withering look before turning to stare at Moon.

_I do not belong to this world. How do I return home?_

His tone was polite, if impatient. Moon swallowed. “I'm not sure I can call any of them down here, but if you wouldn't mind coming up to the deck with us, I can ask Solgaleo or Lunala to make you an Ultra Wormhole.” She hesitated. “I have no intention of offending you by my suggestion, but I believe that Mew is also capable of creating Ultra Wormholes. I don't know where Mew lives on this world, but Marshadow does.”

Marshadow popped into existence, separating himself from the shadow of the desk. _Hello, angry brother. Well, you are not my angry brother exactly. I visited the one of you that belongs here._

Moon raised an eyebrow. That was news to her.

 _But I did also visit your mother, or the version of her that belongs here. I can take you to her, if you like. I would be happy to do so_.

Mewtwo remained motionless for a few moments, but then he leaned down, picking up a violet-and-white ball that had gone flying when he had killed Giovanni. He considered it, then held it out to Moon.

 _Break it_ , he said.

Moon snapped it in half at once, holding out the pieces. It was several million Poké down the drain, but she could not possibly give less of a damn about that.

Mewtwo relaxed.

“You can't just,” sputtered Faba, with blood and chunks of flesh on his face and clothes, in his hair. “You can't, you can't just—”

 _I should kill him,_ said Mewtwo languidly. _He is irritating_.

“Hnngh?” Faba paled rapidly.

“Thank you for offering, but we would like to make him suffer and live with it,” answered Moon. “Seems crueller than just letting him die, don't you think?”

 _Crueller for him, certainly_. He lifted his chin once, in a single nod. _I will accept your offer, Marshadow_.

 _Then take my hand, angry brother_.

And just like that, Mewtwo and Marshadow disappeared into the void.

Moon made a valiant attempt to ignore Giovanni's scattered entrails, turning instead to smile nastily at Faba. “Oh, boy,” she said, watching him shrink away from her. “You brought all of those people here, and you caused all of this pain and suffering. Whatever are we going to do with _you_?”

* * * * *

Hau and Lillie were already running to Wicke. Rogelio and Sophocles joined them, faces terse. “Moon, will Hero fit in the elevator?”

“Not with us in it.”

“Damn. Okay, anybody with a Psychic-type Pokémon, we have to get her up to the hospital.”

“Where's her tablet?” Moon glanced at the desk, spotted the tablet, and picked it up. “Sophocles, come play with this. She can control practically the entire Paradise from here— if you can hack it, we can get things ready for her.

“It's a thumbprint lock.”

The voice was weak and cracked, but it was definitely Wicke.

“No, no, Amelia— you've got broken bones, _don't sit up_ —”

“Fine,” sighed Wicke, laying back down on the cot. “Bring the tablet over here, I'll unlock it for you.”

Sophocles retrieved the tablet from Moon and brought it over to Wicke, who pressed her thumb on the appropriate button before letting her hand fall back to the cot.

She looked like a mess. It was unnerving, considering how perfect and pristine Wicke appeared at all times; but her pink sweater was more dried blood than pink, and her face was swollen and bruised. Her glasses were long gone.

“Ben,” said Moon, letting him out. He immediately trotted toward Macbeth, who stood glaring at Faba. “Knock him out.”

“You can't just—”

He slumped to the ground, shaking. Macbeth made a questioning noise.

“Yes, you could carry him. Thank you for offering.”

She recalled Ben and Hero both. Lillie had withdrawn Esper, a determined expression on her face; Rogelio had a Hypno, and Hau of course had Uila. The three Psychic types carefully worked together, levitating Wicke out of the cot and over to the elevator, where they all crowded inside and left the viscera of Giovanni behind.

Lusamine let out a soft shriek when she saw Moon and Faba covered in blood, but went silent as she saw Wicke, floating past and supported by Esper, Uila, and Rogelio's Hypno. Moon stared her down, daring her to make any sort of remark— but Lusamine said nothing, merely watching with unreadable eyes as they passed. She had gotten food from someone, a plate with a sandwich and a bottle of water.

“Got it!” said Sophocles triumphantly, holding up Wicke's tablet. “I've let all the Aether employees out of their apartments.”

“You'll need to page the doctors,” said Wicke. Her eyes were closed, and her voice was a mere croak. “Do you know how?”

“I saw that on the home screen.”

Moments later, a message blared from the loudspeaker system, in both the house and, Moon knew, in the main Paradise complex.

“Hi, could we have some doctors come over to the mansion? Ms. Wicke is hurt really badly, and there are some people who are unconscious who need to be taken care of. Thanks. Um, this is Sophocles by the way. Captain Sophocles. Thanks.”

“You said thanks twice,” said Moon.

He flushed. “Yes, well, I'm not used to making PSAs.”

“You did a fine job, thank you,” whispered Wicke.

They waited in the foyer, keeping her afloat with psychic power; soon enough, a herd of doctors were running up through the garden, exclaiming at restrained Rockets along the way, and promptly rushed her off to the hospital.

Moon was tired and heartsick, but she had only a few things left that she had to do.

With Skulls to volunteer and everyone mostly fed, it was easy to gather all of the restrained Rockets in the courtyard in the front of the house. Archie, Maxie, Cyrus, and Ghetsis, all having regained consciousness, were put with them. Guzma had his Ariados wrap up Faba and put him off to one side.

“As you can see,” Moon told the villains of parallel universes, “I'm covered in a lot of nasty shit. It's Giovanni.” They blanched. “He pissed off Van's Mewtwo, and it killed him. I broke its Master Ball and a friend has taken him to our Mew, who can open an Ultra Wormhole to take him home. Lysandre will not be returning to his world, as he's also dead. We're debating about returning you to your own worlds as well. On the one hand, none of us want to have to deal with you because that's a lot of tedious paperwork, whether or not you're jailed or executed. On the other hand, I imagine that Maxie and Cyrus at least have gathered some information about how Ultra Wormholes work, and have plans to develop in that direction if they are returned home."

Of the assorted villains, Moon had had the least amount of interaction with Cyrus, thanks to Hero knocking him out almost immediately. She glanced at him as she said this, trying to determine if her guess had been accurate or not; but his eyes met hers with an eerie, empty calm.

Moon swallowed and looked away. "As for the others— Ghetsis is too unbalanced, and Archie just doesn't care.”

“An astute observation,” spat Maxie, glaring at Archie.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you stuck-up piece of shit landlubber. Just because I won in my world doesn't mean you have to look at me like I'm something you scraped off the hull.”

“I wasn't _looking_ at you in any particular way other than disdain, you disgusting, pathetic worm—”

“Gentlemen, please,” Moon interrupted them, offering a smile. “If you need some alone time, I can get you a room. Until then, shut the hell up and listen to me.”

“I wouldn't fuck him if he were the last person on earth,” spat Archie.

“As though I would deign to even express interest in something as low as you.”

“The sexual tension is hilarious, but it's getting annoying, so.” Guzma patted his Ariados; two well-aimed splotches of web silenced both Maxie and Archie. “Like the lady said: shut the hell up.”

“Thank you, Guzma,” said Moon. “Anyway, the four of you are something of a quandary. But you know what— the number four is a really nice number. A nice, even number.” She paused. “You know, I have two sets of four friends who are quite powerful. The first four, I have more authority to call on. But I've already chatted with them today, and they're probably quite tired. They did kill Lysandre's Yveltal, after all.” She let this sink in, as their eyes widened. “So I think I'll ask the other four to come pay a visit.”

She was reasonably certain that this would work, though she had Hala, a barely recovered Olivia, Nanu, and Hapu waiting nearby in case it did not. But to her surprise, the Tapus appeared as soon as she finished speaking.

 _What do you want, Champion_?

“These men are from parallel universes,” Moon informed them. “They've come here seeking to conquer and destroy, though thankfully we were able to prevent that. They numbered eight. Two have been slain— one at the hands of your brother and sister of light, Grandmother Starlight, and the one who walks the Shadow Path.” She wasn't certain where the phrasing had come from, but something pulsed in her throat as she spoke and she was certain that Marshadow approved. “The other slain was torn to pieces by a Pokémon whom he believed to be his servant. You can smell his blood upon me yet.” God, she needed a shower. “One, over there, will await what mortal justice we can give him— suffering and humiliation of the worst kind, is my hope. One is not present, lurking on Tapu Bulu's island with guards of his own; justice will be meted to him in due time.” She heard Tapu Bulu snort quietly. “Four remain. Imprisoning them would be inconvenient and sending them back to their own worlds is inadvisable, given what they have learned here from the one who brought them all together. They must not be allowed to abuse Ultra Wormholes and the threads of time and space.” Another pulse in her throat; there were several invisible, approving sensations and she wondered what other gods might be present. “They have endangered humanity and Pokémon alike, and have threatened to impose their own unnatural desires upon the world. Will you punish and remove them from our jurisdiction?” She cleared her throat. “Preferably before Interpol gets here officially, because I don't want them to claim these idiots for scientific research.”

“Good lord, it's almost like you've already worked for Interpol,” remarked Nanu, not bothering to lower his voice.

 _We will do as you ask, Champion. It is no trouble to punish those who deserve it, and you are correct that these would cause a lot of trouble if left unheeded_. Tapu Koko's voice was amused, and he drifted forward to lift Archie, clawed hand bunching in the Ariados silk. _Come with me, mischief-maker, and I will show you death at the hands of a proper trickster._

Tapu Lele selected Maxie. _Come with me, unfeeling one, and I will show you death that you feel to your very core_.

Tapu Bulu, with considerably less care than either of his siblings, picked up Cyrus. _Come with me, void-seeker, and I will show you death that teems with life and light._

And finally Tapu Fini lifted Ghetsis, her mouthless face seeming to smile at him. _Come with me, madman, and I will show you death as you break under the insanity of truth itself._

And with that, all of the Tapus vanished.

“Oh thank God,” breathed Moon, slumping over. “I thought they were going to just kill them here and leave the bodies. At least this way we can just say _oh well, legendaries, what can you do_ to Interpol when they get here.”

“You command gods and monsters,” said Faba plaintively, from where he sat alone. “It isn't right. You're just a child.”

Moon turned to look at him for a few moments. “Are you willing to learn?” she said finally. “Do you understand that we keep giving you chances that you don't deserve?”

“You said you were going to make me suffer!”

“Because you're a complacent, arrogant asshole. The only way anybody grows is through suffering. You seem to be incapable of learning or changing your mind, which is a pretty terrible trait to have for someone who claims to be a scientist. Doesn't the evidence indicate by now that you _are_ wrong, that you have _been_ wrong, and that unless you choose to mend your ways you will _continue_ to be fucking wrong?”

There was a long silence, broken only when Hau whispered, “Damn.” Several people laughed uncomfortably.

Faba didn't answer, staring stubbornly at the ground.

“Cool,” sighed Moon, the fight leaving her. “That's all I wanted to say to you. You can just wait out here until Interpol comes. I hope it fucking rains _,_ you piece of shit. It's the least you deserve.”

 _This in my amusement I will grant you, Champion_.

Tapu Fini's voice faded to laughing silver as it indeed began to rain. Faba screeched angrily, but Moon, along with the god, could only laugh, and laugh and laugh; until she found she was no longer laughing but crying.

“Come on, Moon,” said Lillie gently. Hau put an arm around her, heedless of blood and viscera. “Come on. Let's get you into a bath. You'll be all right.”

“You did so well,” added Hau. There was pride in his voice— for her. Pride, for _her_. “You had to make a lot of hard choices today, and you saved so many lives. Not a single Skull was killed, and only ten Aether employees. You're a hero all over again.”

Moon could hardly explain to them that that was _why_ she was crying. It wouldn't make any sense.

* * * * *

This concludes _Weedkiller_. Please look forward to Gladion's adventures in Kanto in _Highlights From the Cherry Blossom Front._

_//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////_

_**END NOTES (because I couldn't fit all of them into the actual end notes section)** _

I know the original press conference was about the Ultra Wormholes, but I've already made that Hau's Problem For Later so instead you get Wicke being petty as fuck about reorganizing the budget and creating a charity for abused children, _right in front of Lusamine's salad_. Tasty, tasty revenge.

...aaaaaaand it ALL WENT WRONG AND THE STAKES ARE MUCH HIGHER HERE THAN THEY ARE IN CANON. I'M SORRY AND I LOVE YOU ALL

Sophocles is actually a very sweet and innocent boy. But he's also sixteen, spends a lot of time on the internet, and is a computer programmer. Does he swear? _DUH_.

Instead of the Festival Plaza rent-a-Poké battle, please enjoy a Tron-inspired fusion because time isn't real, physics are arbitrary, and I wanted to write the difference between sweet irl Soffy and badass hacker Sophocles. However I know NOTHING about computer programming, codewriting, or hacking. If I did, I'd be able to figure out how to fucking embed things on AO3. So yes this is Tron but more aesthetically than scientifically, if that makes any sense.

“Hoverboard” is a word that here means “self-balancing scooter.” This clarification is brought to you by the Lemony Snicket style of redefining words for comic effect gang.

“What was that about Team Rocket?” “I think the virus is maybe related to it. Like whoever wrote the virus might be a creepy fan, or something.” —oh honey

Moon and Lillie both mothering the hell out of Sophocles, “wear a jacket dear, it gets cold” I CANNOT

“How come Gladion didn't take us through here when we were breaking in the first time to rescue you?” — because the author forgot to build the Aether Paradise up to fire marshal code

oh look I've been setting up for RR Episode since mcfuckin Po Town :')

“sCiEnCe&” because of the Spongebob meme. not that Wicke would have known about that when creating the password lmao

“I probably looked like some kind of Galarian clansman. You know, the ones that wear kilts.” —consider this: Milo, but in a kilt. Though I will take a moment to point out that if Galar's map is simply the UK but inverted, the player character is in fact from Scotland. Where are my goddamn kilts for the male player character.

So my dad is a mathematician for the NSA and he does like cryptology and codebreaking shit for a living. He's written several papers about password security. I have not read the papers because they are classified government material and whatnot but if I have learned one thing from him it is this: DO NOT EVER HAVE “PASSWORD” AS YOUR PASSWORD. IT IS THE FIRST THING HACKERS WILL TRY. YES, PEOPLE ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO DO THIS.

I am relying heavily on Bulbapedia, but also on what I remember of my singular playthrough of Pokémon Blue to write details from “the Silph Co. liberation clusterfuck.” Sabrina's there to help because... well, it's her town and she SHOULD help??!? I have no idea about the anime, like if Team Rocket ever captured Silph Co. in it (I don't imagine they did b/c I don't think there are many TR characters besides Jessie and James. and they're, you know. comically incompetent.).

...that being said, I do really like Jessie and James and it makes me sad to try and reconcile their existence and role in the anime with how creepy/evil Team Rocket are in RBY, which is part of my canon source material as this fic is based on the game universe. But LG:P/E are also part of my canon material, and (spoiler alert) J&J are in LG:P/E. So like, they _exist_ ; but they're as adorably and comically incompetent as always, so in CTN they're not truly Evil and they get a happy ending. I don't think they're like Together together, mostly because James is written as Incredibly Full-Camp Gay and I simply can't imagine it. A lot of villains are, in media. I've talked about this before in author notes so I won't soapbox again, but it's homophobic and I am not here for that shit.

Guzma awkwardly giving Moon a hug is one of my favorite interactions between them that I've ever written :')

OH HO HO SO TEAM ROCKET WAS BEHIND THE LAKE OF THE SUNNE SHENANIGANS...

“They're villains, they don't get to play video games.” —true justic

“Ever since I got back from Ultra Space two months ago, I've woken up every night screaming about fuckin' alien jellyfish from hell in my brain and I've been trying to sort out the mess in my own goddamn head. I've got a therapist, which sometimes helps but mostly doesn't. I'm in some kind of counseling shit with Plumeria, because apparently we're codependent or some shit and we have to learn to not be toxic.” —yeah so guess what a SIGNIFICANT plot arc in Flowers Grown From Bones is going to be

OMG ARCHIE HI. I own Alpha Sapphire, but I low-key preferred Maxie as a villain because Archie was just so _likeable_. Anyway we're not doing the battle this time because 1) Moon and co. are trying to avoid being noisy but also 2) HOW WOULD A KYOGRE FIT INSIDE OF A HOUSE. GAME FREAK I HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MADNESS and 3) they caught Archie by surprise so they're doing the smart thing and incapacitating him immediately.

Also, if you didn't catch it: “the two brats and Stevie McMoneybags” are Brendan, May, and Steven Stone. In whichever universe, obviously.

Archie wasn't paying attention during the Evil Villain Briefing because he's Archie, and only just vaguely picked up on the fact that Almas is transgender before dismissing this information as trivial. (I Do Not Like writing Archie as mildly transphobic, for the record; but it's more due to the fact that his field of fucks to give is barren, rather than because he's actually malicious.)

The existence of Subnautica, the video game is canon in CTN. Because I fucking love Subnautica. I also hate it, because it's terrifying and the void of the ocean is Very Awful and there are monsters who want to eat your face. But I love it at the same time. And Almas definitely, totally plays Subnautica... and also other video games. Which is how he met Sophocles.

^ I've been planning for Almas and Sophocles to be friends since like... I dunno, Hibiscus? It wasn't long after the existence of Jeremiah, Ki-moon, and Almas popped into my brain that I was like “okay so each of these guys has like their own Thing and for Jeremiah it's DJ-ing/mixing beats and stuff, for Ki-moon it's photography and videography, and for Almas it's video games and internet culture.” But then it occurred to me that Sophocles likes video games (not just in my own brain, he's literally shown holding a controller in some of the game promo art and I think there's a video game console in his non-Trial room in USUM) and Alola isn't really a terribly large place. So yeah they're... _friends_.

Remember when Guzma thought that using female pronouns for Null was dumb? we stan character growth

Okay and now we have Maxie! Like I said, I think Maxie makes a better villain than Archie. I also think that Maxie would actually understand more about gender issues than Archie, for the sole reason that he has a _male_ henchman (trust me I double checked on this) who is named Tabitha.

Oh god Wicke. What I have I done.

And then they just leave Lusamine to the tender mercies of Ghetsis lmao. Lillie: “THE BITCH DESERVES IT” everyone else: “are you sure—” Lillie: “SHE. DESERVES. IT.”

My new favorite thing is Moon using Hero as a literal grenade, so much so that I had her do it twice in the same fic. I love Hero.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GUESS HOW LONG I'VE BEEN PLANNING ON VAN BEING GIOVANNI

Thanks to Ultra Space and Rainbow Rocket shenanigans there are TWO Giovannis, and one (Moon's universe) is Giovanni, present at the Aether Paradise; and one (parallel universe) is Van, in Po Town with the Foxes. Thank you very much. *bows despite whoever is throwing rotten tomatoes*

“Wicke needs medical attention, rescuing the kids is going to be messy, and nobody gives a shit about Lusamine.” “I give like, a quarter of one.” “We give a quarter of a shit about Lusamine.” —this is one of my favorite dialogue exchanges in this entire sixty-seven-page monstrosity

Faba is indigo because he's useless, change my mind

OH GOD IT'S GHETSIS

OH GOD HE JUST HAD COFAGRIGUS BREAK LILLIE'S FINGER WHAT THE FUCK AM I WRITING

and FINALLY we have Colress to the rescue!!! with his invisibility button tehehe

Molayne: *flirts at Colress in chaotic bisexual*

Colress: I choose not to acknowledge that I have any idea what the fuck you're talking about.

I do not apologize for Moon using the musical _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_ to save everybody's lives. If I hadn't before made it clear that this series is at least partially crackfic, then this is your notice: this series is at least partially crackfic. It's also because I've included a lot of dark shit in this installment, and this is my way of making myself feel better about it.

Also, Guzma sings. This may or may not be entirely, wholly, completely based on the fact that I recently binge-watched _The Untamed_ with my sister, and I feel like the Guzma I have written and Wei Wuxian have a lot in common. Except Wei Wuxian does not sing; he plays the flute. Also he is a hell of a lot gayer than Guzma. (That's not me projecting or fetishizing either. Literally the source material for the untamed is a gay Chinese romance. Except the TV adaptation censored it so they were just rEaLly cLoSe fRiEnDs because, well, China. Oddly enough, this censorship made the show in some places _even gayer_. There was a lot of intense but unexplained eye contact, and both the videographers and the music producers for the show were absofuckinglutely like “oh dude that's gay as fuck and we're going to make everyone believe it even if the script and directors say otherwise.”) Anyway, _The Untamed_ is hella good shit. 25,000 out of 10 would recommend.

**Author's Note:**

> Moon has Guzma sing “Hushabye Mountain” because it's a lullabye from a dad to his kids. It's meant to like, reassure the Grunts. Yes, I did cry a little at the idea that Guzma is their collective father figure. She then has Guzma sing “The Roses of Success” because 1) it's fucking hilarious and 2) it's about achieving goals and implementing plans, which is what they are doing while the song is happening.
> 
> Also, the entire thing happened because I was brainstorming: “How do we get Lysandre out of the way? There's a bunch of kids trapped in the middle of the room, there's a bunch of guards... oh my god what if they dropped a hook and made him fly like in _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_ when they string up the Childcatcher lmao oh my god it's crack but we're doing it” And then my brain was like “Hushabye Mountain though” and I went “OH GOD HELP IT'S A THEME” and here we are uwu
> 
> The reason we have not, until now, had any boss fights, is because the other villains have had some sense of self-preservation. Archie's ambition is an ocean world, but he wants to live to enjoy it. Maxie's ambition is a volcanic-rock-to-landmass world, but he also wants to live to enjoy it. Cyrus's ambition is to destroy the universe and start it over, but he wants to survive and be god instead of Arceus so he also wants to live. Ghetsis's ambition is to be the king of Unova and have Pokémon only serving him, but he wants to live to enjoy it. Giovanni wants absolute power, but what's the point of power if you're dead? Faba, of course, is a little weasel fink who wants a promotion at his job. (Come on, man. Dream a little bigger.) But Lysandre... well, Lysandre wants a beautiful world, and he doesn't mind if it comes at the cost of humanity— including himself. So he's the only one stupid enough to bring out his legendary. I didn't bother with the rest of the battle because Lysandre's like, “Why would I bother with my Mienshao or my Pyroar or whatever when I can just destroy everything with fucking YVELTAL.”
> 
> Anyway I am sorry about the deus ex machina here, but what I wanted to focus on primarily is what exactly that means. Moon is eighteen, and on her word the gods will kill, defend, and protect. That's a hell of a lot of power and she is really feeling it.
> 
> Also I'm sorry about all the gore. It's kinda gross but like... this segment is pretty dark in the first place. I did content warn y'all.
> 
> “You have the strength to protect” is a line lifted from Lysandre's dialogue in the Rainbow Rocket episode. I thought that was kind of nice.
> 
> Lusamine is being... oddly well-behaved. Wonder if that'll last.
> 
> Faba: *exists*  
> Moon: Macbeth, make him gtfo  
> Macbeth: THIS BITCH (emotionally) EMPTY, YEET
> 
> The (more or less canon/Pokémon lore) story about Mew, that Marshadow told Moon, really hit her deep. It hit me kind of deep when I was researching, too.
> 
> The violent manner in which Mewtwo kills Giovanni is at least partially inspired by the depiction of Mewtwo in the excellent fic _Peaks and Valleys,_ by user clefairytea. (Red/Blue, slow burn, explores neurodiverse Red, a key decision in my general change of mind from “eh I don't really ship Red/Blue” to “oh dude they're married as fuck.” VERY good fic.) That Mewtwo does... violent things (specifics would be spoilery as fuck so I'm not going to elaborate), but they are decidedly different violent things than what I just had this Mewtwo do. Ever since reading that fic, Mewtwo as a concept just kind of, idk, scares the absolute shit out of me hahahahaha so yes, I'm writing a Mewtwo that in turn scares the absolute shit out of me. Exorcise your own demons, kids.
> 
> Wicke :(((((((
> 
> Just because I didn't have Moon battle the bad guys doesn't mean that they're getting off lightly. Moon's logic: “well I already bothered nebby and the light gang today so I guess now I gotta bother the tapus. HEY KIDS COME GET YOUR BREAKFAST”
> 
> I know some of you will probably be disappointed about not seeing legendary battles, but I'm not very good at writing battles and I was a little hesitant to try it. Sorry :/
> 
> Just so you know: the first four chapters of Flowers Grown From Bones will feature three other perspectives of the events of Weedkiller. So if you're wondering about some of the things that happened off-screen or in another character's mind, then you can look forward to that. :)


End file.
